Radicool: Reverse Graffiti

I created some reverse graffiti with my knuckles a few years ago when I accidentally rode my bike through the Webster tube. I felt as if I'd smoked two packs of cigarettes in quick succession by the time I reached the light of Alameda.

But artists like Sao Paulo's Alexandre Orion embrace the evidence of auto pollution as their priimary medium, and the message is literally in the medium. It's no mistake that Orion paints skulls, which are revealed as he scrapes the soot off the walls of tunnels, overpasses, and other areas where soot and pollution accumulate.

It's evidence of the love that urban dwellers have for thier cities.

How nice it would be to live in a cleaner, urban world.

And what artists can do to change our perceptions of our surroundings, our homes, and what we're doing to them.


Thanks to Grist for the reporting.