Joseph Kyselak (1799 - 1831) – a legend from Old Austria

As legend has it, a young man only provided with a minimum of equipment, travelled across the Austrian Empire and became famous for a special habit: He wrote down his name wherever he could.

Our research project, focussing on this eccentric guy, tries to collect some of the facts: Kyselaks own book Journey on Foot through Austria, Styria, Carinthia, Salzburg, Berchtesgaden, Tyrol and Bavaria to Vienna, (Vienna, 1829) is taken as a primary source to look at his aims and the places he visited.

As a first presentation of our results there is a tv-documentary which is also available in english:

"Kyselak, the first graffiti tagger" is presented by the ORF – Austrian Broadcasting Company.

At the moment, we're working on an english book on Kyselak.

This website is divided into nine parts:

Joseph Kyselak - biographic notes, informing about Kyselak's education and his career as a lower clerk in the Central Administration Offices under the reign of Emperor Franz II /I.
Orte - Places visited by Kyselak; some of them still show his signature.
Fussreise 1825 - The journey he wrote the book about. Accompanied by his white dog, Kyselak walked for more than 3 months across the countryside. If possible, he took the most beautiful route. He was highly interested in ruins and historic sites.
Projekt - everything about our project: Who we are and why we think we should treat the subject...also some ideas how to do this.
Literatur - People seem to have been fascinated by Kyselak from his times on. Some Graffiti-Lovers admire him as the first "tagger" ever...
Sponsoren - persons and institutions that support our project.
Kontakt - Contact us, we'll be glad to hear from you!
links - some links for your interest; we recommend these sites but we are not responsible for their contents.

enjoy your trip to 'Good Old Austria',

Gabriele Goffriller and Chico Klein

Vienna, in December 2009