ABSTRACT
"Life Sucks without Graffiti" the inscription, displayed in the 1990s in the Zehentgasse of Heilbronn, some 65 kilometers southeast from Heidelberg, Germany, summarizes the modern urban condition. The author has spent the last half a decade traveling through Latin America. Among other endeavors, he focuses on graffiti in metropolitan centers and, occasionally, also in rural landscapes, whenever possible interviewing grafiteros. Most of the work he did on his own. The author's purpose was to decode the encryptions in a way that evidenced a universal graffiti syntax within the Latin American context. Latin America is also a habitat where Muralismo has thrived across the board, from Mexico to Brazil, from Uruguay to Cuba. A dramatic change has taken place in Latin American graffiti since the turn of the millennium. This is especially obvious in the 2010s. Instead of resisting it, governments have been embracing it, blurring the line between fast-produced design and murals.
