Barcelona's Graffiti Wars

We went to to Spain for Luke's February break and cousin Josh joined us for the long ride down the coast. Our first spot: Barcelona, the invigorating capital of Catalonia. Jeff and I took the boys on a tour of Gaudi and the Gothic Quarter. They introduced us to the city's exuberant graffiti culture.

I used to equate graffiti with vandalism, but Luke's fascination with this, um, art form over the years has made me look again. In Barcelona, in response to the city's crackdown on the spread of graffiti, scores of shop and restaurant owners hire graffiti artists to paint the shutters that adorn their doors.

On their own initiative, Luke and Josh tracked down a graffiti gallery so we made the pilgrimage the next morning, with the boys clutching notebooks filled with their own bizarre and creative drawings.

Inside we met Robert, owner of Base Elements. "It's a war out there," he explained. "The city is trying to pass a law that would fine both the shop owner and the graffiti artist in those cases when the store hires the artist." He went on to tell us about the various artists whose work he sells, including Pez with his trademark big-toothed grinning fish (featured below) and Rallito-X whose signature feature is his original use of certain male body parts... The boys grinned as I politely flipped through the X-man's latest comic book.

What does it mean that graffiti, born in the modern era from protest and rebellion, is going commercial, almost mainstream -- from the streets of Barcelona to the movie, Exit through the Gift Shop, and even the Shepard Fairey t-shirts that Luke just bought?

I will leave my art historian friend, Mark L., to explain whether the graffiti explosion signifies the renaissance of an ancient form, or a new-found appreciation for crude shapes and garish colors.

Or maybe the embrace of graffiti reflects the

deep-rooted yearnings of the human psyche to rebel against the forced orderliness of society and to mark our place in a vast, chaotic universe....

Who will win the graffiti war in Barcelona?

I'm rooting for those who wield the spray cans.