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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, Bogotá, 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.
“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 scholar’s critical intellect and an artist’s 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