POSTCARDS FROM ROME

ITALY

The "writing", which is the practice of writing or drawing graffiti on walls and wagons of trains and subways with markers and aerosol spay, is a phenomenon that was born in Philadelphia, the United States, at the end of the sixties. Having experienced rapid development in New York, where in fact it becomes an art form as well as costume, the writing is spreading in almost all big cities in the US and Europe where it still has a large following.

In Rome the writers are numerous. Their characteristic is that practice especially the "tag", from the English verb "to tag", "mark", to mark the neighborhoods where they move with their stylized signature or a personal symbol, each time leaving a trace of their passage.

But perhaps the most distinctive writers of Rome than those of other nations is that draw their graffiti and their signatures everywhere indiscriminately, both on ancient buildings, monuments and statues of which is particularly rich in the old town as areas popular and peripherals, without making that distinction that foreign writers have always done, and that leads them to avoid the artistic heritage of their cities to favor the newer parts.