51吃瓜

Graffiti artists in Beirut use the city鈥檚 walls to highlight 尝别产补苍辞苍鈥檚 social and political issues. [Click on the gallery on the right to view the photo feature.]

Lebanon has undergone drastic changes in the last decades, including a bloody 15-year-long civil war and massive reconstruction efforts in its aftermath. The civil war has been the topic of many art works in various forms, including聽graffiti. During the war, militias used a primitive form of graffiti to promote their ideologies and political views. During that time, graffiti in Lebanon was as simple as writing slogans on city walls. Nowadays, everything has changed in this country: the life style, the governing system, the political rivalries and the art.

In聽the mid-1990s, Western-style graffiti started to appear on 叠别颈谤耻迟鈥檚 walls. But it was one decade later that a new graffiti style emerged that is has become聽known as the Lebanese style. Lebanese graffiti artists are combining stencils, Western influences, Arabic typography and New York-style throw-up graffiti.

尝别产补苍辞苍鈥檚 street art scene in form and content has close connections to countries such as Egypt and Tunisia. Graffiti artists in Beirut mostly focus on political and social dilemmas of their own country and the region. Uprisings in Arab countries, war, ethnic conflicts, religious clashes and sexual freedom are shaping the main themes of 叠别颈谤耻迟鈥檚 graffiti scene.

Lebanese graffiti artists can freely spray 叠别颈谤耻迟鈥檚 public and private spaces. This is because Lebanese authorities have not labeled graffiti as vandalism or criminal damage to public and private property. Certain restrictions do apply: Graffiti cannot be sectarian, target a specific political leader or be drawn in a restricted area. Despite this freedom, in one recent case, the Lebanese judiciary system a graffiti artist to court and another artist鈥檚 was quickly covered by paint. In both cases, their work had highly sensitive political connotations. One of them showed a Lebanese army soldier with the sentence 鈥淚 love corruption鈥� on his T-shirt. The other one pictured army soldiers as machine guns.

Click on the gallery on the right to view the photo feature.

The views expressed in this article are the author鈥檚 own and do not necessarily reflect 51吃瓜鈥檚 editorial policy.

漏听Changiz M. Varzi