Everywhere I go, Graffiti is one of the first things I´ll notice. It can tell you a lot about a town - politics, culture, policing, the works. Graf here is pretty different than back home. A quick primer - Graffiti in the US is generally about one of two things - Gang Communication, or ¨Getting up,¨ which basically just means trying to get your tag in as many places and seen by as many people as possible. In this type of graffiti (which is a lot more of what you get in NYC than the gang stuff), artistic style is also important.

Here it´s very different - perhaps the best way to introduce what Graffiti is about here is this sign which is asking people not to write on the wall. It basically reads:

Friend
I respect your political ideas
your music band
your soccer team
your romance
Please respect my walls

And, in order, that´s pretty much what graffiti is about here. It also has very little (if any) style, and has no artistic component. I´ll go into more depth on these later. For now though, here´s some stuff you might find back in New York.

First, the ever popular, worldwide Jesus graffiti.

Second I understand if people in other countries take a vested interest in our international policy - but Free Mumia?

There´s also some NYC style tags and throwies around. The fact that they´re also mostly in NYC-style places like rail cuts and overpasses leads me to believe that they are most likely the work of some US expats rather than native Porteños.

What I´m less sure about is this piece by (allegedly) Neckface who´s a pretty prolific NYC tagger. A lot of folks hate on Neckface, but I´ve always given him props, and it was pretty cool (and a little mirage-like) to see a piece by him on Avenida Independencia at 5 in the morning while walking home from this party
at Buenos Aires´ answer to CBGB. I doubt it was actually him though - more likely a Porteño who´d seen his stuff in NYC or even on the Internet.

There´s only been a couple non-political tags I´ve seen in more than one place - in the spirit, if not the style, or ¨Getting Up¨ (and even those I´m not sure are non-political). One is ¨Hijos del Hijo¨ which translates to ¨Children of the Son.¨ That one I´m not sure isn´t related to the political group H.I.J.O.S.. The other is La Reina del Ghetto, or Queen of the Ghetto (which might also be political, but I don´t think so). Never mind that I´ve only seen her tag in the decent-to-nice parts of town.