50 Fun Facts About Graffiti

The word graffiti comes from an Italian word meaning what?

The rare singular graffito is now used mainly by archaeologists.

The oldest known written graffito, from around 500 BC, was found on an island of which country?

It turned up on Astypalaia in the Dodecanese; ancient graffiti were usually cut into walls with a sharp point.

The Alexamenos graffito (c. AD 200) shows a crucified figure with which animal's head?

It mocks a Christian and may be the earliest surviving depiction of Jesus; it is kept in the Palatine Museum.

Ancient tourists left over 1,800 graffiti on a citadel's 'mirror wall' in which country?

Visitors to Sigiriya scribbled names and comments there between the 6th and 18th centuries.

The only known source of Safaitic, an ancient form of Arabic, is graffiti carved on rocks in what kind of desert?

The inscriptions cover southern Syria, eastern Jordan and northern Saudi Arabia.

The 'Kilroy was here' doodle spread worldwide in World War II through its use by whom?

Legend says Hitler thought Kilroy might be an Allied spy and Stalin asked who he was after finding it in a Potsdam bathroom.

James J. Kilroy, credited with the phrase, worked as what at the Fore River Shipyard?

His chalk mark stopped riveters erasing inspection marks to get paid twice; a 1946 contest drew more than 40 rival claimants.

The British version of the Kilroy doodle, a bald head peering over a wall, was known as what?

The others were rival names for the same figure; Australia's Foo may predate Kilroy by 25 years.

The 1967 London graffito 'Clapton is God' was spray-painted on a wall in which district?

It is cited as an early example of graffiti outside the United States, and helped create the cult of the guitar hero.

Modern graffiti began in the early 1970s in New York City and which other US city?

The two scenes grew up independently before hip hop carried the New York style around the world.

Which writer, born Darryl McCray, is widely considered the world's first modern graffiti artist?

He later worked with the city's Anti-Graffiti Network and Mural Arts Program to curb what he had started.

The number in the tag TAKI 183 came from what?

The Greek-American foot messenger lived on 183rd Street in Washington Heights; the New York Times profiled him in July 1971.

The New York Times article that made TAKI 183 famous in 1971 was headlined 'Taki 183 Spawns' what?

He worked as a foot messenger and wrote his name along the routes he walked.

What is a large, elaborate, letter-based graffiti work done with spray paint or rollers called?

It is short for masterpiece; a tag is the quick signature and a throw-up sits between the two.

The term wildstyle was popularised by a crew formed in the Bronx in 1974 by which writer?

The interlocking, arrow-laden lettering became the movement's signature look.

Which New York mayor, quoted in Style Wars, regarded subway graffiti as defacement and public blight?

The writer Norman Mailer, by contrast, was among the art's admirers.

The 1983 documentary Style Wars, directed by Tony Silver, first aired on which network?

It won the Grand Jury Prize for documentary at Sundance and features Kase 2, Dondi, Seen and Skeme.

Which photographer co-created the 1984 graffiti book Subway Art with Henry Chalfant?

The two had documented the trains separately for a decade before finding a publisher, Thames & Hudson, at the Frankfurt Book Fair.

The 1982 film Wild Style, regarded as the first hip hop movie, was directed by whom?

Lee Quinones stars as the anonymous writer Zoro alongside Fab 5 Freddy, Lady Pink and Grandmaster Flash.

In 1979 Fab 5 Freddy and Lee Quinones painted a subway train with giant cans of what, in homage to Warhol?

The pair also had their first gallery show that month, at the Galleria La Medusa in Rome.

Fab 5 Freddy is name-checked in the rap section of which 1981 Blondie song?

He also appears in the video painting graffiti in the background; it was the first hip-hop video shown on MTV.

Under which tag, shared with Al Diaz, did a young Jean-Michel Basquiat write cryptic epigrams around Manhattan?

The name began as a schoolboy in-joke short for 'same old'; when the pair fell out in 1980 the tag was declared dead on SoHo walls.

Basquiat's Untitled (1982), a black skull with red and yellow rivulets, sold in 2017 for how much?

The buyer was Japanese billionaire Yusaku Maezawa; the artist had died of a heroin overdose at 27 in 1988.

Keith Haring first drew attention with white chalk drawings on unused black ad panels where?

He called the subway his laboratory and kept drawing there even as his gallery prices soared.

Which crawling-infant image became Keith Haring's most recognised symbol and his tag?

The other three were also recurring Haring figures; the baby was embroidered on his AIDS Memorial Quilt panel in 1991.

Keith Haring's 1986 mural visible from New York's FDR Drive carried what anti-drug slogan?

He repainted an updated version on the same East Harlem wall that October; he opened the Pop Shop in SoHo the same year.

Lady Pink, the 'first lady of graffiti', was born in which country?

Born Sandra Fabara in Ambato, she moved to New York at seven and starred in Wild Style in 1983.

Dondi White's most famous work, Children of the Grave Parts 1 to 3, was painted on what?

The three whole cars were painted between 1978 and 1980; he founded the CIA (Crazy Inside Artists) crew in 1978.

Blek le Rat, the 'father of stencil graffiti', began stencilling which animal on Paris walls in 1981?

He called it the only free animal in the city; 'rat' is also an anagram of 'art'.

Blek le Rat was caught by police in 1991 while stencilling a Madonna and Child by which painter?

After the arrest he switched to pre-stencilled posters, which are quicker to paste and carry lighter penalties.

Banksy's work grew out of the underground scene of which English city?

He started freehand with the DryBreadZ Crew in the early 1990s alongside a scene that included Nick Walker, Inkie and 3D of Massive Attack.

Banksy switched to stencils after noticing a stencilled serial number while hiding from police under what?

His first known large wall mural was The Mild Mild West on Stokes Croft in 1997.

Which Banksy canvas began shredding itself moments after selling at Sotheby's in 2018?

It sold for £1.042 million; renamed Love Is in the Bin, the half-shredded work resold in 2021 for far more.

Banksy's 2015 'bemusement park' in Weston-super-Mare, modelled on Disneyland, was called what?

It ran for five weeks with work by Damien Hirst and Jenny Holzer among others; its Dream Boat was later raffled for refugees.

In 2017 Banksy financed the Walled Off Hotel, which stands beside the separation barrier in which city?

Three seascapes made for the hotel later raised £2.2 million for a Bethlehem hospital.

Banksy's Devolved Parliament, sold at Sotheby's in 2019, shows MPs in the Commons as what?

The 2009 painting fetched just under £9.9 million, roughly a year after the shredding stunt.

In Exit Through the Gift Shop, Thierry Guetta filmed street artists for years but did what?

The editors sifted more than 10,000 hours of tape; the film premiered at Sundance in 2010 and earned an Oscar nomination.

Berlin's East Side Gallery was painted in 1990 by roughly how many artists?

They came from 21 countries and produced 105 paintings along 1,316 metres of concrete.

Shepard Fairey's 1989 sticker campaign, which grew into the OBEY brand, featured which wrestler?

He made it as a student at Rhode Island School of Design; the sticker's stated meaning is that it has none.

Per Shepard Fairey, his original 2008 Obama poster carried which word instead of HOPE?

The campaign asked him to reissue it with HOPE; the image was later found to be based on an Associated Press photograph.

The 5 Pointz aerosol art centre, whitewashed overnight in 2013, stood in which New York borough?

The Long Island City warehouse had been curated by Jonathan Cohen since 2002.

In 2018 the developer who whitewashed 5 Pointz was ordered to pay 21 artists a total of how much?

The judge applied the maximum statutory damages of $150,000 for each of 45 destroyed works.

American student Michael Fay was caned in 1994 for spray-painting cars in which country?

The president reduced his sentence from six strokes to four despite an international outcry.

IBM's 2001 guerrilla campaign spray-painted a peace sign, a heart and which mascot on sidewalks?

The slogan was 'Peace, Love, and Linux'; Sony later paid building owners before painting PSP ads to avoid the same trouble.

Aerosol spray paint was invented in 1949 by Edward Seymour of Sycamore in which US state?

He added aluminium paint to existing spray-can technology at his wife Bonnie's suggestion, originally to paint radiators.

Melbourne's most photographed graffiti laneway, a popular backdrop for wedding photos, is called what?

A Banksy stencil there survived from 2003 thanks to local writers refusing to paint over it, and got a perspex cover in 2008.

Which Romantic poet's carved name survives on a column of the Temple of Poseidon at Sounion?

French soldiers had done much the same on Egyptian monuments during Napoleon's campaign of the 1790s.

Pichação, a protest graffiti style of tall cryptic characters, comes from which country?

It stands apart from the more conventionally artistic 'grafite' practised by writers such as Os Gêmeos.

Which company paid to paint 'dizzy-eyed urban kids' playing with its PSP handheld in 2005?

Having noted IBM's legal troubles over its own sidewalk campaign, the firm secured rights to the walls first.

An early legal 'Graffiti Tunnel' for writers sits on the Camperdown campus in which Australian city?

Any student may tag, poster or paint there, an approach meant to channel vandalism into unhurried art.