Documenting a Graffiti Tag by Muelle, a Pioneer of Graffiti Art in Spain

This paper presents the results of the historical and artistic documentation and the conservation assessment of a tag by Muelle, a pioneering Spanish graffiti artist, in the city of Vigo (Galicia, Spain). Attribution of the tag is primarily based on evidence of the artist’s presence in the city in the late 1980s, such as by different graffiti elements in the form of tags. To increase the understanding of the technique and materials used, the tag and its substrate were documented and examined by digital photography and hyperspectral imaging. Microsamples of the tag and substrate were analyzed by X-ray diffraction, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, optical microscopy, and scanning electron microscopy to characterize the materials and assess the tag’s state of conservation. This work enabled us to document the tag within the context of its creation and to establish hypotheses regarding the intention behind it. We confirmed that the tag has been weathered by degradation processes that typically affect contemporary urban art, with scaling caused by deterioration of the substrate being the most important type of alteration. The results of this multidisciplinary study will be key to identifying the most appropriate intervention measures to ensure the tag’s conservation and the transmission of its legacy.