The Alley Cats of Art – On GECO and The Art of Disobedience

Analog Picture of GECO by Riccardo Ceci @shotsfromkapitale

Chi Cazzo é GECO?

ROME – Dominating Rome’s walls, benches, bathrooms, and metros, is one name.

I moved to Rome for school in August of 2021, about a year after graffiti artist GECO’s 2020 arrest. My neighborhood of Trastevere was covered in graffiti. The underpass near the Trastevere train station boasts a GECO piece, and so does the Ostiense train station nearby – you can read from the train, Fukin GECO. I later moved to the Roman university and working class neighborhood, San Lorenzo, an intersection of street art, murals – political and memorial – and plenty of tags. GECO stickers pepper the streets. In Amsterdam’s red light district, I saw a GECO sticker next to the bathhouses. In Lisbon, journalists reported on his sightings on their buildings. In Naples, GECO. In London, GECO. In Athens, GECO. If you look high, high up in the neighborhood of San Giovanni in Rome, you’ll see “GECO TI METTE LE ALI”. GECO GIVES YOU WINGS!

From the New York Times – “Rome Tracks Down the Man Behind All That Graffiti. No, It’s Not Banksy.” Getty Images.

Disobedience – An Art Form

On May 14th, I saw GECO’s debut into the film world. His movie, titled “The Art of Disobedience,” is a collection of videos of him climbing and painting, articles about his arrest, and statements from other Italian graffiti artists on the entirety of the graffiti scene in Rome and elsewhere in Europe. The film premiered on May 4th and had a series of screenings in major European cities. Three of the men that worked on the film were at the Barberini cinema, and spoke about what this all meant after the film concluded. Valerio Bindi, artist, told the audience – “this is not a film about GECO, it’s a film by GECO”. “Non è un film su’ GECO, è un film di GECO”. The spirit of disobedience came from the mouth of the man himself, pouring it into the movie and its viewers.

The graphic design for the movie was done by BYLD studio’s founder, Luca Terenzi, who also created Grit Mag’s website. (Grazie tantissime!)

The movie documents not only the Italian people’s diverse views about GECO the graffiti legend, but the art of “writing” itself. There are interviews with local writers, like NAPS and SYLA that talk about the graffiti scene and GECO’s importance. NAPS mentions the art of breakdancing, which is considered one of the pillars of hip hop, graffiti being another, in many spheres, even academically. Dominziana Febbi, another writer, eloquently talks about the art of graffiti and what kind of person it attracts. She says “the beauty of bombing (graffiti method similar to tagging) is to be completely independent,” and that “people who can’t find significance – they do graffiti”.

NAPS. SYLA, TUFF, Febbi, and other writers relish in the beauty of their craft – TUFF noting to the camera, “how beautiful it would be for it to be legal.” Recordings and interviews with the police are also in the films. I could hear them on car radios yelling, “chi cazzo è GECO?” – who the fuck is GECO? – and admitting, “we can’t clean the walls, they’ll (graffiti artists) will just put another piece up”. The Art of Disobedience is a whole picture of what it means to be a graffiti legend in Rome, so legendary that you can make a movie about your tags after being arrested for them.

But, the most interesting part of the film, to me, were the cats. Towards the end of the movie, GECO is followed by a camera while he’s out painting. He reaches down to pet a cat. It’s a cute and disarming clip, seemingly independent from the rest of the hip hop heavy film, but I argue that it’s really not.

Cat Graffiti in New York – April 2025

The Alley Cats of the Art World – Graffiti Writers

Seeing a GECO tag in Rome is inevitable. While few see him painting, (he did wave and say ‘buongiorno’ to passersby in the film), the markings he leaves are everywhere. GECO, and all good graffiti artists, are sly, clever, and agile.

Thinking of the urban world, there are few animals that come to mind. Pigeons and rats pecking at the streets, seagulls croaking, even green parakeets fluttering over Rome. You see dogs that belong to people, and dogs that belong to the police. The types of dogs that have a smiling snout and a howareya face while they poke their nose in your bag and at your feet, pawing at their overseer and locking the inhabitants of the street up. The dogs do the man’s dirty work. The dogs, so naively obedient and with the sweetest faces – they work for the controllers, the prosecutors, the law.

But cats, cats bounce to an opposite beat. You see them at night slinking between fences and pawing under stairs and bridges, clawing up a space for themselves. They sunbathe on the ruins in Rome that tourists are too nervous to even touch in the fear of being disrespectful. The cats, they don’t care. They lounge where they please. They affectionately rub against you and stretch languidly while looking at you with vampy eyes, silently manipulating. They’re independent, they’re confident, they’re cunning.

DIAZ in Rome – November 2024

You see GECO in his movie, scratching the cats under their chins lovingly. The cats don’t bark, they don’t make a scene, they don’t alert the authorities. Quickly prowling through the darkened streets of Rome, leaving marks wherever he goes, GECO is only different from the cats in the way he rushes. Cats don’t care if they get caught. It doesn’t matter to them – they have no one to obey.

GECO’s lawyer, Domenico Melillo, was quoted during the initial investigation of GECO, that the police in Rome wanted to arrest GECO so “they look like they’re doing something”. The pro-GECO side of the controversial arrest pointed out that there are potholes to be fixed, petty crime to be stopped, and other actionable fixes that Rome needs. Instead, they arrested GECO.

Under a Bridge in Amsterdam – November 2024

The sweet sweet faces on these kitties, the ones that let them get away with whatever they want. The charm of a rebel. Dominziana Febbi and the other beautiful, brave women that do graffiti – having more courage to prowl around at night than any loud lookatme! man or barking dog. There is a quietness to a tag and to a claw mark. There’s only the trace left behind. In the catacombs under Roman neighborhood Tor Pignattara, migrants etched their names into the stone walls – Emmanuel 1362 – scratching like a cat, tagging like a writer. Desiring to leave a legacy like a human.

If you’re quiet enough, and you look under the bridges and behind the train tracks of the metro, you might see them. Curled up behind cars or on top of terraces, you might see them. Purring or eyeing their way out of trouble, you might see them. You might admire them.

You can always be an artist for the public, a performer barking for your audience and being sold as a “Banksy” for millions. But once you’re sneaking through the fabric of the law, a legend with no face, silently napping in the sun the next day with no fear – you won’t want to be an artist anyway. You’re a writer. MEOW!