Effective visual communication has become an essential strategy for grassroots political activists, who use images to publicly express resistance and make their claims visible in the struggle for political power. However, this aesthetics of resistance is also employed by political and economic elites for their own purposes, making it increasingly difficult to distinguish from the aesthetics of rule. Through illuminating case studies of street art in Buenos Aires, Bogota, Caracas, and Mexico City, The Aesthetics of Rule and Resistance explores the visual strategies of persuasion and meaning-making employed by both rulers and resisters to foster self-legitimization, identification, and mobilization.
Arvustused
This book will be an important intervention into the study of street art in particular, and of public art and artistic activism in general. The author approaches the subject with the rare combination of a scholars critical intellect and an artists aesthetic eye. Stephen Duncombe, New York University
An excellent book that captures the agency of street art interventions. The clear and innovative research methods represent a significant step forward in visual methodology, offering a lucid account of how to understand visual communication. Aidan McGarry, Loughborough University
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgements
Introduction: Political Power, Visual Communication, and Public Space
Chapter
1. From Conceptualizing to Analyzing Visual Power and Resistance
Chapter
2. Street Art: A Medium of Visual Political Communication
Chapter
3. Setting the Scene: Street Art in Latin American Urban Space
Chapter
4. Buenos Aires: Latin America Now or Never
Chapter
5. Mexico City: Another World is Possible Democracy, Freedom,
Justice
Chapter
6. Caracas: El Comandante is Present
Chapter
7. Bogotá: Exploitation Ruins Life
Chapter
8. Across the Cities: Strategies of Visual Meaning-Making
Conclusions: The Media Are Theirs, the Walls Are Ours
References
Appendix A: Shooting Script for the Photo-Documentation
Appendix B: Image Descriptions and Image Sections/Composition from the
Detailed Analyses
Appendix C: Code Frequencies
Lisa Bogerts is a Berlin-based political scientist, researcher, and editor. Her work focuses on political conflict and protest, visual communication, artistic activism, and power relations.
