ABSTRACT
This chapter focuses on the most visible visual aspect of global cities—graffiti. Graffiti in its various forms has become a perennial feature of life at the edges of the contemporary city. Implicitly set as a challenge to urban relations, as the transgressive act of property crime, graffiti has become an emotionally charged public order issue. The commodification of graffiti and street art in advertising, on t-shirts, or through successful cross-over into the contemporary art marketplace, has raised the profile of individual artists and the genres of graffiti and street art more generally. In the wars on graffiti the moral battleground of the city has moved on, with the embrace of the transformative capacity of creativity heralding a new era of zones of toleration, of legal graffiti walls, and street art galleries. Time continues to play an important role in graffiti as ephemeral artworks are increasingly captured, stored, and circulated on the Internet.
