Ugly Graffiti, Antistyle, and ‘Shithole’ Post-Socialist Aesthetics
Abstract
The development of street art (especially graffiti) in peripheral contexts such as Eastern Europe or Latin America is tied to globalization and the spread of US American culture in the 1980s-90s. After the first stage of attempts to copy and adopt new trends, the reaction appeared as a form of rejection, protest, self-exotification, and work with the context.
Although the anti-style/ugly/ignorant graffiti has been around for about 20 years, its history has never been written down. There aren’t many publications and analytical texts around — this is probably because the anti-style is a subculture within a subculture, so only the participants of this sub-subculture could write its true history.
In my current research, I focus on the roots of ugly graffiti in Eastern Europe, primarily on Czech, Ukrainian, and Russian cases, analyze its connection to the post-socialist urban and social environments, and what I call ‘shit-hole’ aesthetics that became popular in social media in recent years.