Since the early 1970s, graffiti artists decorate the exterior of subway trains with ever larger and more elaborate tags. In the primitivist scheme, graffiti artists, as marginal artists, offered new perspectives to American society. They tended a mirror to the hegemonic culture. References to the media or cultural elements that artists incorporate into their creations are particularly important because they represent a point of contact between cultures and make this "subculture" more accessible to its new audience. This resolutely rebellious form of expression is analyzed here by Margo Thompson, who links the art of graffiti with contemporary art. Just as graffiti artists brought a voice to an underrepresented ethnic class, the author, thanks to an original thesis, tends to serve as an ambassador to this often-overlooked art form.