Iranian graffitists feel walled in
The life of a graffiti artist's work can be as short as an hour in Iran, where municipalities wage a determined war on underground street artworks, unless the cities commission the wall paintings.
“You are no artist if you are drawing on a wall with spray paint. You are either a vandal or a political activist scribbling a slogan,” Iranian graffiti artist "Mad" said of the longstanding public’s opinion on street art.
The first generation of Iranian underground graffiti artists started painting on Iran’s walls around the beginning of the 21st century, and the new generation of Iranian artists continue to transform the walls of Iran’s cities — from Tehran to Tabriz, from Mashhad to Shiraz.
“Our initial problem was that no one would differentiate between our work and vandalism. Street artists not only faced public intimidation in Iran, but they were also threatened by the police, the Basij forces and other security organizations,” Mad told Al-Monitor.
Iran's walls have played a complicated and contradictory role in citizen activists' protests. In the years leading up to the 1979 revolution, political slogans or images of leaders of the revolution began to adorn the country's walls, turning public spaces into a platform for calls of a revolution.
