with Rafael Schacter and others
Monumental Graffiti explores graffiti as a vital form of expression that challenges power structures by questioning whose voices are included or excluded from public space. To mark the launch of this important publication, there will be a spoken word performance by 10Foot, followed by a conversation between the author, Rafael Schacter, and Camden Art Centre’s Curator of Public Programmes, Matt Williams. The event will conclude with a curated selection of video works by artists such as Brad Downey and Christian Falsnaes, alongside artworks from the book by Duncan Weston, Alexander Bavard, and others.
About the book:
What is graffiti—vandalism, ornament, art? What if, rather than any of those things, we thought of graffiti as a monument? How would that change our understanding of graffiti, and, in turn, our understanding of monument? In Monumental Graffiti, curator and anthropologist Rafael Schacter focuses on the material, communicative, and contextual aspects of these two forms of material culture to provide a timely perspective on public art, citizenship, and the city today. He applies monument as a lens to understand graffiti and graffiti as a lens to comprehend monument, challenging us to consider what the appropriate monument for our contemporary world could be.
Monumental Graffiti unpacks today’s iconoclastic moment, showing us why graffiti demands our urgent attention as a form of expression that challenges power structures by questioning whose voices are included in—and whose are excluded from—public space. Written from twenty years of embedded research on graffiti, the book includes works from graffiti writers such as 10Foot, Delta, Egs, Honet, Mosa, Petro, Revok, and Wombat, alongside those of artists such as Francis Alÿs, Jeremy Deller, Thomas Hirschhorn, Jenny Holzer, Klara Liden, Gordon Matta-Clark, William Pope.L, Cy Twombly, and many more.
Richly illustrated, this study of graffiti as monument and monument as graffiti is as fascinating as it is ethnographically expansive.