Evan Roth’s Graffiti Taxonomy, on display through September at the Fondation Cartier pour l’art contemporain (though equally well experienced through the superb Flash experience of the Foundation’s website) was clearly a grand undertaking. Roth photographed hundreds of graffiti pieces on the streets of Paris, then painstakingly separating their letters to create an alphabetical catalogue of French handstyles. The epic work done in Photoshop—sharpening and isolating the letters to create stark, almost brushy calligraphy—is absolutely top class, but we remain foggy on what the average person is to learn from this experiment in taxonomy, or what it is supposed to add up to. Kudos to Cartier for the noble gesture, the gesture that says graffiti is art and has history and is to be taken seriously. Having said that, this exercise seems, to us, to lack a point. Your thoughts, as ever, are greatly appreciated.

fondation.cartier.com