Blood on Their Doorposts
BY GABE RUBIN
Despite recent investor bullishness and cocky parliamentary speeches from Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, Spain remains mired in a profound economic crisis that has hurled its citizens into dire straits. While the overall unemployment rate stands at the American Great Depression level of 25 percent, youth unemployment, at over 50 percent, threatens to destroy the hopes and financial stability of an entire generation. The youth haven’t stayed silent and accepted their fate—like other Spaniards, they are frequently striking and organizing, blocking streets and facing down the riot units of the Guardia Civil. They have also taken out cans of spray paint, using ubiquitous graffiti to advertise strikes, deface banks, ridicule advertisements, and encourage boycotts. More than anything, the graffiti marks their continued suffering presence in Spanish society, scrawling a scarlet letter upon its chest for failing to provide for its youth.
This Lost Generation’s graffiti reflects their dismal circumstances, uncertain fate, and impotent desire to change their prospects. In certain areas Madrid can look like Midnight Cowboy bombed-out New York, smelling of urine and bearing the spray-painted scars of disillusionment and despair. Spanish Crisis graffiti has nothing to do with Banksy’s self-righteous stenciled simulacra, lapped up by American teenagers eager to participate in anti-systemic movements while they eat Doritos at their desks. It shows up in alleyways and on churches, outside metro stations and under highway overpasses. Its life is as short as a scream, soon to be drowned out by someone else’s—or worse, by the blanching muzzle of the state.
The following photographs were taken between January and April 2014 in cities throughout Spain:
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