Tag – You’re It

Many European cities have a lot in common: rivers that run through their hearts, buildings older than the US constitution, and ridiculously gorgeous women for my husband to ogle. Today’s post, however, is not about Robert Redford’s movie, awesome architecture, or my desire to tattoo “taken” on my husband’s forehead. Today’s post is about the other thing virtually all the European cities we visited have in common: graffiti.

Hubby and I were taken aback by the amount of tagging we spied during our journeys this summer. None of the European cities we visited this summer was spared the wrath of these spray can wielding “artists.” Walls, doors, archways – from what we could tell all flat surfaces were free game for taggers.

We did see some evidence of cities trying to take their cities back by painting over or chemically removing the graffiti. This somewhat thankless task can, from what I understand, be not only costly for city governments but also rather futile.

As Hubby and I snapped photo after photo of graffiti, we wondered why we were more sensitive to this visual pollution than the people around us. Our American friends in Hungary found our outrage puzzling since tagging happens virtually everywhere. For the most part, they didn’t even notice the spray painted walls we walked by.

In the time since these photos were taken, I’ve thought a lot about what these tags meant. They were not, I was informed in several cities, gang related but that doesn’t make them less insidious. The reason it bothered me, I think, was simply the juxtaposition of these beautiful old buildings with their amazing rich histories contrasted with the disrespect and hate behind the graffiti that now “decorated” these walls.

I can appreciate graffiti art in its place but none of the tagging I saw this summer was art. It was mindlessly and needlessly destructive and that makes me sad.