This essay concerns graffiti, and in particular graffiti removal regarded as iconoclasm.

Graffiti is described as a visual symbol laden with both negative and positive values, and sometimes as a meaningful expression in the urban public space. One problem with graffiti as a field of study is the diversity of both the meaning of the term as well as the diversity of the phenomenon itself. Therefore I have defined the term graffiti as follows: words and images painted on public walls by a person usually in an unauthorised manner. Specific examples of graffiti and related phenomena are presented. Within the Swedish anti-graffiti discourse the pejorative term klotter (scribbling) is used to describe what I above define as graffiti. A short analysis of this discourse is followed by case studies of specific examples of graffiti removal that can be regarded as iconoclasm.