Sevilla, as I have thus described, is a strange place indeed. To add to its list of oddities, is the curious nature of its graffiti. The stuff is everywhere. Its leaves no surface untouched – glass windows of buses, park benches, historic monuments, and resturaunts of the well-to-do.
While the standard abstract calligraphy of the street occasionally surfaces in Sevilla, more often than not the lingua of the alleyways is nothing more than pure genius. This (oftentimes multi-lingual) script calls for political and social movements, offers advice, attacks modern tourism, and speaks of love. These commentaries about existence and life itself have become my daily horoscopes. Every new one I find, are my inspiration, warning, or contemplation for the day. “Never trust a hippie”, I avoid the street markets where x-hippies sell their wares, opting for commercial venues instead. “I have died only for the salvation of tourists?” The churches in Sevilla are now more filled with tourists than sevillanos… social commentary at its finest. And on and on and on.
You all know me well, I am a theorist above all other things. And I have a theory for this. Sevilla is a city built on a rich multilayered history. True. Baroque – that art period defined by glorification, ostentation, and sharp contrasts between dark and light – is one such history. Another past is that of Moors, who brought with them the art of Arabic calligraphy which in itself was a highly spiritual process. Another, those medieval priests rewriting the Bible on carefully illuminated manuscripts. More recent? With Franco persecution and with the European Union modern changes. These sevillano graffitists are undoubtedly the forbearers of mind boggling labyrinth of history. Bitter now, with no work for calligraphists or illuminated manuscripts, they inscribe on the city itself, which they blame for their fate.
What do they write? Drawing from their baroque past it is undoubtedly highly contrasting and emotional – one artist writes a deep black HardxCore one day and a yellow ode to love the next. Why not of religion if they are born out of monks and mullahs? In Spain, the language of politics and social causes and individuality has replaced religion completely. Indeed, religion itself is a social movement, part of the politics of modern life, by attacking the tourist attraction that city cathedrals have become.
You doubt me I suspect, however I have a bit of photographic evidence to back it up. Conspicuously during siesta as other sevillanos were napping or lounging at cafeterias, I transcribed a few notations of these everyday epiphanies with the lens of my camera. The following is a tiny sampling of my photographic evidence; hopefully I will accumulate more as my stay here continues.
“Precariously she burns me hot, precariously she is going to burn.”
“Never trust a hippie”
“Jose is the color of my dreams”
“Have you died only for the salvation of tourists?”
Others with no picture as of yet:
“Stop speculation of old homes”
“Vote or die” (Wasn’t this also a chant of the American Revolution?”)
"I have no home"
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