Post on 13-May-2023
MA JOURNALISMFaculty of political scienceUniversity of Zagreb
Critical view on the streetart in Zagreb
ESSAY
Tutor: PhD Zlatan Krajina
Student: Matej Knežević
Word count:
1. ABSTRACT.................................................42. INTRODUCTION.............................................52.1. DEFINING THE CITY......................................52.2 CONNECTION BETWEEN STREET ART AND CITY..................63. STREET ART IN ZAGREB.....................................83.1. STREET ART IN BRANIMIROVA STREET......................115. CONCLUSION..............................................146. LITERATURE..............................................157. ATTACHMENTS.............................................17
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1. ABSTRACT
The question of removing graffiti is on going problem in
Zagreb. Also, part of the wall with graffiti in Branimirova
Street was recently demolished. It is important to hear
pedestrians oppinion about this topic and analysis the role of
graffiti in the mediated city. Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels
considerate city as consequences of urbanization under
capitalism and they examine the concentration and misery of
the mass of workers in the new urban agglomerations as a
necessary stage in the creation of a revolutionary force.
Acording to Iveson, graffiti writing and other forms of street
art involve alternative ways of imagining, mapping, using,
mediating and making urban space. Graffiti are usually seen as
violation of social behavior and threat for community values.
Such a perspective could very usefully be applied to
critically interrogate ‘zero tolerance’ approaches towards
graffiti. City authorities aren't supporting toward graffiti
wall in Zagreb, but also some of the citizens, who assemble
round table about this topic. They worry about idealistic
views of the city, as such views fail to account for the
everyday life and experience of it.
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Keywords:
Street art, Zagreb, graffiti , critical review,
2. INTRODUCTION
The question of removing graffiti is on going
problem in Zagreb. First of all, city authorities , recently
decided that graffiti should be removed from Zagreb's facades
and that they will make questionnaire what does citizens of
Zagreb think about it. Also, part of the wall with graffiti
in Branimirova Street was recently demolished. While I was
preparing myself for interview with my colleague from Academy
of Fine Arts, Matija, I had noticed that every web portal
who wrote about recent demolishing wall in Branimirova,
haven’t made any distinction between street art and graffiti.
In this paper, the key emphasis will be defining differences
between those two types of public art as well as their
relevance for the city. Public art is, according to
Association of Public art, is not an art “form.” Its size can
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be huge or small. It can tower fifty feet high or call
attention to the paving beneath your feet.”
On the other hand, in the text of Stéphane Tonnelat, public
space is defined as "open space", meaning the streets, parks and recreation
areas, plazas and other publicly owned and managed outdoor spaces, as opposed
to the private domain of housing and work (Tonnelat, 2010). In
interview for one Večernji list, Boris Bare says that street-
art is visual art created in public space. It is not all about
2D masterpieces on the wall, but also it is about
installations in the space. The wall with graffiti in
Branimirova street was exactly that - part of public art and
public space.
It was the only place of that size where were allowed to
create this type of public art legally. It is necessary to use
relevant source in order not to forget what does graffiti
mean. According to Oxford dictionary, graffiti assumes writing
or drawings scribbled, scratched, or sprayed illicitly on a
wall or other surface in a public place.
About this topic and others related to it, it would be
discussed in the following text.
2.1. DEFINING THE CITYIn order to speak about street art, it is important to
specify and define other key issues like city and streetsIt
is necessary to use relevant source in order not to forget
what does graffiti mean. According to the book of Max Weber,
The City, city is define by its political and administrative
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conception. It consist five key issues: fortification, market, a court
of its own and at least partially autonomous law, a related form of association and
partial autonomy and voting rights (Weber, 2014). Many authors would
not agree about this aspect. Aspecially other philosphers,
sociologists and some of political scientists.
The next look is marxist point of view. The Sociology guide quotes
Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, where they considerate city
as „consequences of urbanization under capitalism“. Further more, they
examine „the concentration and misery of the mass of workers in the new urban
agglomerations as a necessary stage in the creation of a revolutionary force1.
„They add that urbanisation is responsible for making mass
and material reduce. As they conclude, urbanism depends on
theory and practice. The last definition comes from german
sociologist and urban sociologist George Simmel. He is known
by his work The Metropolis and Mental Life.
Acording to that work, Simmel examines the city as social
interacions as the forms of association. Looking it from that
direction, those structures repeal and convenience that
social life is possible without picking and sequences of the
observer. He exhibit on three importan ways: “money makes social
relationships, the importance of numbers and individuality against sovereign
powers of society.“ Those actions take place, not just in the city
but also on the streets.
2.2 CONNECTION BETWEEN STREET ART AND CITY
1 Urban sociological theories: http://www.sociologyguide.com/industrial-and-urban-society/Urban-sociological-theories.php
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Street art is often used to distinguish modern public-
space artwork from traditional graffiti and the overtones of
gang territoriality and vandalism associated with it.
Graffiti writing and other forms of street art involve
alternative ways of imagining, mapping, using, mediating and
making urban space (Iveson, 2010). Their quality and quantity
changed over the last few decades. Speaking of it, one more
thing has to be said and that is differences between murals
and graffiti. The specialists of public art always make this
kind of distinction. But before it, according to Encyclopedia
Britannica, murals are a painting applied to and made integral
with the surface of a wall or ceiling. Tim Sieber says that
murals are fundamentally collective, but not individual type
of art.
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Matija Kralj says that graffiti evolved during beginning of
hip hop culture during the 60s. Richard S. Christen in text
Hip Hop Learning: Graffiti as an Educator of Urban Teenagers, notes that
neighborhoods Washington Heights and the South Bronx, were
first places in some city in the States where graffiti
appeared.
Ten years later, the number of graffiti and graffiti artist
started to grow but also the chaise on graffiti artists
started in 70s and hasn’t finished until today. Graffiti
writers were seen as rebels ‘fighting the system’—quite the
opposite, in fact. According to Iveson’s text graffiti is a
tool used by the hateful and the corporation as well as the
marginalized, the artist and the activist. “Graffiti writing
careers involve just as many compromises as others (hello
academia!)” (Iveson, 2010.) With those quotes Matija agrees
and he adds that graffiti always has political connotation.
Graffiti are usually seen as violation of social behavior
and threat for community values. As Castells observed,
mainstream urban analysis is frequently characterized by a
reduction of difference to deviance Iveson is handling with
interesting quote by Sennet. He (Sennet) “presumed that such a
perspective could very usefully be applied to critically
interrogate ‘zero tolerance’ approaches towards graffiti!
Christen deem the graffiti artist were mostly poor
adolescence, mostly “Black and Puerto Rican ignored these
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attacks and began saturating public places with their tags”
(Cristen, 2003).
In order to answer questions like what motivates people to
write graffiti, and what role graffiti-writing plays in their
lives, their methods and their answers are radically
different. It is also difficult to define because there are
lots of other sub-questions for example: graffiti artists
arives from different parts of the town and different social
classes. We rarerly hear that they are part of middle or
higher classes. Instead of that, we hear they are part of Marx
famous word sub-proletariat – which implies usually lower
social groups.
It is also interesting how different ideological and
political positions determine disposition why are graffiti
created. The conservatives says graffiti are vandalism unless
they are created by insitutional educated artists and the rest
of graffiti and street art should be removed or demolished.
They also adknowledge that is not proper to write graffiti on
private property ownership without bureaucratic approval.
Peseants think that graffiti brings felling of insecurity for
citizens in public space.
Liberals thinks that graffiti writers use the city as a space
for expression and communication, political activism and
fights for public interest. They display that graffiti with
discriminational and hate messages should be removed. But, it
is important to mention that an uncritical celebration of
graffiti would simply present a mirror image of the currently
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dominant reduction of all graffiti to ‘anti-social behaviour’
regardless of its quality (Iveson, 2010).
The word street comes from Latin word strata2 and it defines
surface of the road. It can be free to say that this is the
place where art meets people outside of institutional spaces
like galleries and museums. Looking that in that direction, De
Certeau argues about the fabric woven by users, because the
city is, according to his words, living organism in way people
stops for chat with friends, streets are used for typical
walking and other daily routine (De Certeau, 1984). Should be
the same with public art and graffiti? David Morley, in the
book Home territories takes into account Koptivich quote, who says
that graffiti can often be read as “cultural inscriptions of
resistance etched in the ‘war zone’ along a new frontier where
ghetto meets gentrification” (Morley, 2000).
Similar to that, Matija Kralj, student of Academy of Fine
Arts in Zagreb adds that graffiti are connected with hip hop
culture and it is usually guerilla intervention on local
buildings, while street art is combination of traditional
painting art and using wall as medium.
De Certeau says that painters represented the city as seen in a
perspective that no eye had yet enjoyed (De Certeau, 1984). This fiction
already made the medieval spectator into a celestial eye. It
created gods. Things changed since technical procedures have
organized an "all-seeing power". Braninimirova Street is the
good example of it.
2 WordReference.com http://www.wordreference.com/ 11
3. STREET ART IN ZAGREBCity authorities of Zagreb says that many citizens and
tourist think that street art is one of the biggest problems
because they cause dirtness and reduction in value of
property. They also add that in solving this problem should
involve civil sector and NGOs.
Later on, they did not stick to promise and they said they
will unselectively remove street arts.
Former city mayor Sandra Švaljek said that every media report
which will talk about graffiti as art will be qualified as
federal offense. It is directly attack on freedom of speech
from city authorities. It’s not the first time that
authorities says how and what can be said, written and read in
media about some topic. The public in that way will get one
side of the story because the city government told media how
to broadcast about certain topic on official press
conferences.
De Certeau and Engels recognize a problem of viewing the city
from above or from a distance. They worry about idealistic
views of the city, as such views fail to account for the
everyday life and experience of it. And so both aim to correct
this problem by taking philosophy down—to the streets.
City government says that professionals are going to remove
graffiti, and the question arises: who are they and whether
are they competent enough because the government believes that
educational and religious institutions should decide about
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that problem, without asking art institutions and
organizations dealing with the painting street art and grafiti
in the city.
One of the proper questions is to ask: ‘What is the
proper place of graffiti in the city?’ If you ask city
authorities, they will say this question is very controversial
because it hard to say which graffiti have artistic value.
When you ask city government about problematic location and
graffiti there, they say they are going to control it with
camera servailance. Question which I want to ask in this part:
is this the best way to solve that kind of problem?
On one hand former city mayor thinks this topic is
controversial because it is hard to say which graffiti have
artistical value. On other side, they said they are going to
unselectivly remove every graffiti in Zagreb (Šoštarić, 2014).
„It is difficult to make distinction between good and bad
graffiti and problem will be solved if we have equail approach
to every graffiti in town“, said the former major Sandra
Švaljek. Looking in that way, Sandra Švaljek would probably
overpaint also the artworks of the great graffiti artist
Banksy. Banksy is famous in public by his political and often
controversial paintings. What is very important to mention is
that he works like guerila street artist.
The question we have to ask ourself: is this decision
connected with destroying one of biggest street art place in
Zagreb – wall in Branimirova Street? In the text of Mark
Halsey and Ben Pederick, authors are interested in one of the
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key distinctions between available graffiti spots—the
distinction between unsanctioned and sanctioned graffiti. The
terms on which graffiti tends to be sanctioned by urban
authorities, they argue, constitute a kind of ‘vandalism’ of
the genealogies of graffiti as a public artistic practice
(Iveson, 2010). Alison Young offers one of the sollutions in
solving this problem. The policy proposals she helped to
develop were premised on the notion that engagement with
graffiti writers and street artists ought to be a core element
of management of the urban public realm, and that (some forms
of) graffiti and street art might find a proper place in the
city. The proposals also sought to explicitly build on the
recognition that graffiti and street art could actually add
value (aesthetically, culturally, politically and even
economically) to city spaces (Young, 2010). Sadly, there are
no happy endings in many cities in the world and Zagreb isn't
exception.
She also said that the city will educate police and civil
cervants about this topic. Can police be competent in this
subject? It is job for artists them selfs.
As public and graffiti artists says and Iverson confirms in
his work Graffiti, street art and the city, artists should educate people
about this issue, as well as, artist should give their final
decision in this topic. From philosphers point of view, more
precisely Meaghers, it can be considered one interesting point
of view - viewing the city from above or from a distance. The
same issue was interesting for earlier authors like de Certeau
and Engels. 14
De Certeau give us a comprehension of how reasoning can both
offer a standardizing evaluate of the city and in addition
rules for opposing social shameful acts found through that
scrutinize. They worry about idealistic views of the city, as
such views fail to account for the everyday life and
experience of it. And so both aim to correct this problem by
taking philosophy down—to the streets (Meagher, 2007).
They stress over hopeful perspectives of the city, as being what is indicated perspectives neglect to represent the ordinary life and experience of it. Thus both plan to right this issue by bringing reasoning down—to the lane.
As Saskia Sassen, the well known educator from Chicago college, globalization can't be comprehended from a worldwide viewpoint, but instead must be comprehended at the level of the city.
‘Large cities in the highly developed world are the terrainwhere a multiplicity of globalization processes assumeconcrete, localized forms. A focus on cities allows us tocapture, further, not only the upper but also the lowercircuits of globalization. These localized forms are, in goodpart, what globalization is about (Sassen,1997).
Furthermore, cities are the locus of conflicts between new
forces of globalization and older economies, political and
power formations, and traditions. ‘The global city is a border
zone where the old spatialities and temporalities of the
national and the new ones of the global digital age engage’
(ibid, 1997,)
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Lastly, professor Josep Ramoneda in the text „A philosophical
idea of the city“, reviews connection between philospohy and city. He
says: „Philosophy is an urban phenomenon and the city is a phenomenon of
philosophical relevance“ (Ramoneda, 2003). Further more he thinks that
the city has no identity because of its diversity. This idea,
he develops through nine philosophical categories. Although some ideas
stands, like city is never finished process or that city is
symbolic expression. there are some abortive catagories. For
example, when he talks about city as space of freedom, it
offers camouflage. Intentionally or not, author ignores the
fact that there is no such freedom in the city because you are
always under some kind of control. Trafic lights, camera
servialance, other social and cultural activities and
supervision of other citizens.
Furthermore, for him city is the place which is the domain of the "I"
while the community is that of the "we". Not quite, because the citizen
are not individuals. They are group which has specific
characteristics and identities, on the basis of which they are
connected.
3.1. STREET ART IN BRANIMIROVA STREET
Branimirova street is different from every other streets in
Zagreb. Acording to Matija Kralj, this street is „approachable
with its visual message“, which has calls upon a glance. That
is exactly what describes one of the largest streets in
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Zagreb. It spreads from the main railway station in the center
of Zagreb till the crossing on the east part of Zagreb, known
as Sesvete. If it can be trusted to Google maps, it is 10
kilometers long. It is famous not because of its size but
also with problems of getting license acquisition and
expanded. Deterioration of the wall and its necessary
rebuilding , encourage city authorities to repair it because
it was possible that wall collapse on Branimirova Street.
Zrinka Kunić in her interview for Global newspapers3 found that
the wall above mentioned was built and finished in 1987.
during Universiade and it has been long 153 meters and three
meter high (Kunić, 2014). Today, there are many rumors which
says, that the wall will be completely removed and demolished.
On the one hand, the wall has cultural value for the city,
and on the other, it shows social changes through period
between the 80s and 90s and change of political regime. It is
the only wall in close center of the city which is completly
opposite to wall, for example, in Tel Aviv. As web portal
Iskon Internet transfered in 2005, there is mural and
graffiti on that wall, with picture of deceased prime minister
Jicak Rabin who was assinnated in Novembar in 19954. In Zagreb,
there isn't any wall with this political importance.
From estetic point of view, the wall in Branimirova shows
different opinion in eyes of its inhabbitans. With its
demolishing, the question of it political and cultural
meaning came on agenda setting again. Conservatives thought
3Ziher.hr, http://www.ziher.hr/kaj-drma-zid-u-branimirovoj/4
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it was one of the ugliest part of the city and they does not
realise the importance of public art. On the other side,
liberals and enthusiasts of public art saw it as culturocide.
Culturocide is usually connected with urbicid, which can been
seen in this example. It can be seen through deficit of
cultural contents and different type of popular music, that
the quality of lifestyle decreases. That demolishing of the
wall is the one of visible examples of it.
On the place where was wall with graffiti, today stands
posters with advertisments and comercials. Tea Šabić in the
text Cultural industry positive and negative sides, similar to Adorno and
Horkheimer thinks that cultural industries create false needs,
which creates and satisfies capitalism (Šabić, 2013).
Meanwhile, in the text Cities for people, not for profit, authors argue
about exactly that topic. As they said, urban space under
capitalism is never fixed. It can be seen as clash of opposed
social forces oriented throw exchange-value (profit-oriented)
and use-value (everyday life) dimensions of urban sociospatial
configurations (Brenner et. al, 2009). In that point of view,
it can be seen the issue of Branimirova street, because on one
hand you have advertisments (profit-oriented value) and on the
other artists and wall on the other.
But today it is also important to highlight that, after street
art and graffiti moved from ilegal action, it has start
losing on its importance and contribution to local society. It
can be also seen that, street art moved from street and
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entered the galleries and cinemas through the fotos and
videos.
4. COMPARATION OF BANKSY AND BRANIMIROVA STREET
Sabrina De Turk in her text The Banksy Effect: "The Rise
of Street Art in Contemporary Visual Culture" speaks
exactly about the Banksy effect. In order to understand
importance of this issue, it is necessary to mention
dimension of the social life. Professor Zlatan Krajina,
from Faculty of political science in Zagreb in the
interview for web page pogledaj.to said that there is no
any part of social life which is not meditated. He
engraft: “Everybody is interpretative actuality, by using
his emphasis resource, because we are living with media
since we are little and we always try make comparison,
connection…“ Similar thing happens with graffiti.
Furthermore, as any other media, graffiti has its own
value. This is the essence of the banksy effect. It has
been define as „level of interest in street art since
Banksy rose to prominence“ (De Turk, 2014). On the other
hand, the purpose of the wall in Branimirova is not seen
as commercial product rather like aestetic one.
As Sharon Zukin says in the Politics and aesthetics of
public space: The 'American' model says that valorization
had different imppression. Talking about aestetic ones,
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he suggests "good" or "bad", "dangerous" or "safe",
evoked by relations between a public space's users, uses,
and design. That is maybe some of the reasons what makes
does types of art different (Zukin, 1998).
Secondly, in the 1990s, started something know as re-
aestheticization of public space which depends on a large
and growing "symbolic economy": on the one hand, on
Planet Hollywood, Imax movie theaters, and Disney stores
and on the other hand, new contemporary art museums
(ibid, 1998).
Thirdly, but not the last reason is that, the Banksy's
art is globally popular, while Zagreb's wall is popular
to local population or some tourists. It is must be said
that is pity, that Zagreb tourist office has not realise
importance for this type of art and made better
advertisment for it. As Matija Kralj conclude in his
interview: every cultural contribution is important
(Kralj, 2015).
5. CONCLUSION
As it this essay represented, city is not define only by itspolitical and administrative conception, but also as„consequences of urbanization under capitalism. Furthermore,it is social interacions as the forms of association. City ismore of that. It can be said also that the city is livingorganism which is in symbiosis with terms like graffiti,
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public authorithies, public art, mural, streets and othersimilar forms.
It is not only the city which makes the differences, but thestreet is. Street becomes central point where artists meetregulations and laws imposed by city authorities and sometimesby (unfortunatly) its citizens. Exactly that presents thechallenges for everyone who are dealing with any kind ofculture in the city.
As it was said earlier in the text, the two political currentshave different views about street art, although, they are verysimilar. Problem lies in that they both does not give concreteanswer what has be done with this problematic.Referring to thetext once again it has to be said that viewing the city fromabove or from a distance. They worry about idealistic views ofthe city, as such views fail to account for the everyday lifeand experience of it. This is no exception, this isunfortunately cruel rule and that rule is not exempt anypublic art. Jonnatan Swift once said: „Vision is the art ofseeing what is invisible to others“, this creates livingextremly interesting.
Because of those phenomenons and connect and blend to eachother. It cannot be said that the city is unicellularorganism.At the end, it has to be said that Branimirova streetin Zagreb is not neither the first nor the last example ofthis issue, as it also isn't isolated case which will makespears be shaken,
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6. LITERATURE
Adorno M , Horkheimer T. W. (1974): Dijalektika
prosvjetiteljstva, Sarajevo
Association for publicart URL:
http://associationforpublicart.org/ (visited on the 12
july 2015)
Brenner N., Marcuse P. , Mayer M.(2009): Cities for
people, not for profit , City, Vol. 13. Nos. 2–3, 2009,
Routledge, London
Christen, R (2003): Hip Hop Learning: Graffiti as an
Educator of Urban Teenagers, " Educational Foundations
17:4, p. 57-82.
De Certeau, M. (1984): The Practice of Everyday Life.
Translated by S. Rendall. Berkeley, CA: TheUniversity of
California Press
DeTurk, S. (2014): “The Banksy Effect: The Rise of Street
Art in Contemporary Visual Culture, American Culture
Association Annual Conference 2014,
URL:http://www.academia.edu/10332415/
_The_Banksy_Effect_The_Rise_of_Street_Art_in_Contemporary
_Visual_Culture (visited on the 12 july 2015 Iveson, K.
(2010): Graffiti, street art and the city, City, Vol. 14,
Nos. 1-2, 2010, Routledge, London
Kunić, Z. (2015): Kaj drma zid u Branimirovoj,
http://www.ziher.hr/kaj-drma-zid-u-branimirovoj/
Kralj Matija: personal interview, 30.june 2015.
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Meagher , S. M. (2007): Philosophy in the streets Walking
the city with Engels and de Certeau , City, Vol. 11, no.
1, april 2007
Morley D, (2000): Home theritories , 11 New Fetter
Lane, London , 2000.
Šimpraga,S. (2014) Kako proživljavamo svakodnevno
bombardiranje očnog živca, URL:
http://pogledaj.to/drugestvari/kako-prozivljavamo-
svakodnevno-bombardiranje-ocnog-zivca/ (visited
13.August 2015)
Public space. http://www.publicspace.org/en/text-
library/eng/7-una-idea-filosofica-de-ciutat visited
10.june
Ramoneda J. (2003): A philosophical idea of the city, Conference lectured at Yale University
Sasen S. (1997): Whose city is it? Globalization and the
formation of new claims , URL:
http://www.asu.edu/courses/pos445/Sassen--Whose%20city
%20is%20it%3F.pdf (visited on the 10 july 2015)
Simmel G. (2002): “The Metropolis and Mental Life”
(1903) in Gary Bridge and Sophie Watson, eds. The
Blackwell City Reader. Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-
Blackwell, URL:
http://www.esperdy.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/09/Simmel_
21.pdf (visited on the 10 july 2015)
Reader. Oxford and Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell,
2002.Sociology guide: Urban Sociological theiories
http://www.sociologyguide.com/industrial-and-urban-
society/Urban-sociological-theories.php
23
Šabić, T. (2013): Kulturna industrija – pozitivna ili
negativna pojava? http://gkr.hr/Magazin/Teme/Kulturna-
industrija-pozitivna-ili-negativna-pojava
Šoštarić, T. (2014): Interventnim timom u borbu protiv
grafita, AlJazeera Balkan
Tonnelat, S. (2010): The sociology of urban public
spaces in Wang Hoyang, Savy Michel and Zhai Guofang
(ed.), Teritorial Evoultion and Planning Solution: Experences from China
and France, Paris, Atlantis Press, pp 84-92
Weber, M. (2014): Grad, Mediterran Publishing, Novi Sad
Word refference , www.wordreference.com/
Young, A. (2010): Negotiated consent orzero tolerance?
Responding to graffiti and street artin Melbourne, City
, vol . 14, nos. 1–2, february –april 2010
Zukin, S. (1998): Politics and aesthetics of public
space: The 'American' model,
URL: http://www.publicspace.org/en/text-library/eng/a013-
politics-and-aesthetics-of-public-space-the-american-
model (visited on the 12 july 2015)
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