Filippo Soevv

Filippo Soevv's graffiti (master)pieces utilize -- and, in fact, often merge -- intricate, jumbled word forms and commentary-charged murals. Labeled with authority-taunting location names (e.g., Centocelle: a Roman neighborhood [img. 4]); witty, expressive titles (e.g., Le Freak C'est Chic [img. 13] & Old Skulls Never Die [img. 16]); and cries of violent, particularly modern desperation (e.g., Fanculo Tutto: "Fuck Everything" [img. 8]), Soevv's work illustrates the possibilities for a subversive literary form like graffiti.

His figurative murals often critique dominant culture, hetero-normativity, commercial life, and the middle class (imgs. 2, 10, 11 & 20), and his (pseudo)asemic word forms can be read as artistic cryptograms that thwart the uninitiated's attempts to decode them. A statement about the dehumanizing and isolating effects of urban life, it may be, in fact, that Soevv alone can decipher his word forms.