Graffiti: Not a contact sport in Germany?

While graffiti has gotten a bum rap here in the states because of its association with gangs and violence, in Germany it's done more for artistic and political self-expression than turf-tagging. ''The graffiti art community in Germany, while not always moving on legal ground either, at least doesn't support people who shoot each other with guns,'' says Lafayette College junior Felix Forster, who is from Rostock, in northern Germany. Forster is studying mathematics and economics full-time and practicing graffiti art (legally) when time permits. [...] Murals are the most popular form of graffiti art in Germany, according to Forster. ''There's a great amount of illegal graffiti in Germany, some of it very beautiful and artistic, and some of it just ugly tagging on a wall,'' he says. [...] Forster says that German graffiti has a thicker and bulkier style than the American version, which uses more line art and thin lettering. German graffiti artists have also copied the American practice of assigning themselves ''tag names'' to identify their artwork.

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