For a big-city American, experiencing Rome is a lesson in humility. Los Angelinos and Southern Californians think they’ve got the corner on crazy traffic, inscrutable signs, hostile or crazy neighbors, and the most eclectic array of gastronomic delights. While living in Rome in the fall of 2006 for a sabbatical project, we learned very quickly Roman auditory, gustatory, and graphic overload compares to L.A. in a way no simile can capture. Rome is like no other.
During our travels we endeavored to finish a project on Baroque churches, but along the way we were enticed by images we encountered on the streets outside the grand edifices of historical buildings. Graffiti was constantly pulling us back into the modern day, a contrast of color against ancient stones, an enigma, and a challenge to the idea of beauty we were chasing.
We are used to the notion of graffiti in the metropolitan Los Angeles area. We see it on freeway retaining walls and in some alleyways in the inner cities and think it to be a part of some counterculture, some perversion of expression, or the demarcations of the animalistic turf wars created by rival gangs. In Rome, we found that graffiti is pervasive and as layered as the strata of civilizations upon which the city was built.
Graffiti and its counterparts – street art, pochoir, tagging, and scratching – adorn myriad surfaces from trains to trees. It says everything from Kill the Fascists & America, Follow your Dreams, to Rome is #1. And how can one argue with any of it? Where else do they have to express contempt at being overrun by tourists, being overwhelmed by history, being expected to excel with elegance in all the arts and sciences, at the notion of technology usurping the gravitas of their past? The streets of Rome are yet another layer to this varied history and culture.
The images in this gallery are part of the publication by Tom & Lisa Dowling, Graffiti Culture Roma Available at www.blurb.com