Street art

Defined as visual art developed in public spaces or in “the streets,” street art usually refers to unsanctioned artwork such as spray-painted graffiti, stencil graffiti, sculpture, sticker art, and poster art. Evolving from the graffiti writing tradition of the 1980s, street art became a popular commodity by the twenty-first century, with artists such as Banksy and Futura 2000 gaining worldwide acclaim.

Street artists challenge the definition of the art world. They aim to create artwork that resonates with everyday people and avoid becoming prisoners to the established art system. Artists such as Lady Pink, Barry McGee, and Shepard Fairey have helped transform the walls and streets of cities around the world into colorful canvases that make a connection between the artist and the citizen without the artificial formality of an art gallery.

Background

Graffiti has existed since prehistoric times, when homo sapiens painted pictures of animals they hunted, battles they fought, and likenesses of themselves on the walls of caves in Africa and Europe. Graffiti has likewise been uncovered in the ruins of ancient Greek and ancient Roman cities. This graffiti provided a window into people’s daily lives but did not function as art. From the first century BCE to the fourth century CE, citizens of what are now Syria, Jordan, and Iraq graced building walls with their thoughts about religion, politics, and romance and also rendered cartoon-like drawings resembling people. The Mayans in Guatemala, the Vikings of Scandinavia, Napoleon’s soldiers in Europe, and pioneers on the Oregon Trail all left graffiti to mark their presence for posterity.

The hip-hop culture of 1970s New York included graffiti in its repertoire of art forms, and punk rock bands like Black Flag stenciled their names on many walls in New York, Los Angeles, and London in the 1970s and 1980s. The graffiti movement spread across the United States and other countries. Mexican American muralists in Los Angeles added graffiti to their artwork, and street gangs in Chicago, Dallas, and other major cities used graffiti to mark their territory. Graffiti artists in Europe and Asia covered trains and walls of many major cities.

During the 1980s, state and local governments cracked down on graffiti artists because many felt the practice contributed to the type of urban decay and blight that invited crime. Authorities increased penalties for graffiti artists, yet many such artists continued their work. New York graffiti artists such as BG 183 and Blade aggressively created their street art; some discovered that working in their own neighborhoods marked them for arrest, so they traveled to other areas of the city. Both Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, who started out as New York-based graffiti artists in the 1980s, became internationally renowned during this period, and their works were prominently featured in the art world before their premature deaths in 1990 and 1988, respectively. Their works continue to command millions of dollars as their reputations have grown posthumously.

Despite more effective cleaning methods and more stringent laws, graffiti still flourishes in the United States and the rest of the world, and it has become a respectable branch of contemporary art.

Overview

Although graffiti artists mostly use aerosol paints to create their art, other street artists are increasingly using new media forms, such as projection onto large city buildings and digitally created computer art. Other types of street art include chalk drawings, stencils, installations and sculpture, posters, stickers, Lock On (in which the work is chained or otherwise locked to a fence or other fixture), and yarn bombing (the creation of knitted or crocheted installation, often around an existing statue, tree trunk, lamppost, or other item).

Advertisers have also adopted graffiti as a marketing tool, and some street artists work for corporations on contract (participating in what is sometimes called guerrilla marketing) while others prefer to remain unaffiliated so they can express their views without censorship. Street artists often travel to foreign countries to share their designs, even as many retain their activist, subversive, anti-authoritarian outlooks. Street artists frequently use vacant lots or the blank sides of buildings as their canvases (which they “tag” with their paintings, in street parlance) because the universal theme in most street art is to utilize public space to reach a broader audience than traditional art work in traditional art galleries would afford. Disenfranchised people with few resources to create change also use street art for political expression.

Some people think street art is nothing more than vandalism, while others perceive it as art. In most places, street artists can be charged with vandalism, intentional destruction of property, and criminal trespassing. Other communities have laws that are contingent on whether the street art is on public or private property.

Many street artists have achieved commercial success working for other companies or starting their own businesses, and some have made the transition from street art to traditional galleries and museum exhibitions. Other street artists have earned international attention for their work.

The 1990 book Soho Walls: Beyond Graffiti by David Robinson traces the shift in New York from the written work of graffiti artists toward more visual art, such as the group of five New York artists working under the name AVANT which specializes in shadow figures. Street artists like John Fekner, an urban art pioneer, are featured in Cedar Lewisohn’s book Street Art: the Graffiti Revolution, which supplemented the 2008 Street Art exhibition at the Tate Modern in England where Lewisohn is the curator.

During the 2008 US presidential campaign, graffiti artist Shepard Fairey became famous for creating Barack Obama’s “Hope” poster; Fairey became a well-known street artist in the 1980s through his slightly subversive but thoughtful “OBEY” sticker campaign featuring wrestler Andre the Giant. His fame launched him into the mainstream, with his high-priced and well-regarded works no longer thought of as subversive.

One of the best known street artists in the early twenty-first century is a British artist who goes by the pseudonym of Banksy, and is as famous for his ability to conceal his true identity as he is for his often satirical murals that project political and social undertones. Banksy skillfully blends stencils and his dark sense of humor to make his work readily recognizable. His work appears in unconventional international locations, including the wall between Israel and the Palestinian West Bank. His works also appear throughout London and other English cities, including Bristol, which reportedly is his hometown. The artist's stencils have also appeared in Los Angeles, New York, Detroit, and San Francisco.

Banksy’s graffiti is so famous that his pieces sell up to half a million dollars at auction, and some people have even cut out walls that he has painted to put them up for sale. He has also sold his own work at gallery shows and auctions, but he uses an agent to protect his anonymity. The 2010 documentary film Exit through the Gift Shop presents a compelling portrait of Banksy and his work, which includes the creation of the documentary itself and his portrait of a French street artist named “Mr. Brainwash.”

Bibliography

Blackshaw, Ric, and Liz Farrelly. The Street Art Book: 60 Artists in Their Own Words. Harper, 2009.

Deitch, Jeffrey. Art in the Streets. Rizzoli, 2011.

Gastman, Roger, Caleb Neelson, and Anthony Smyrski. Street World: Urban Art and Culture from Five Continents. Abrams, 2007.

Hencz, Adam. "Street Art: History of the Art Movement and the Artists That Turned Cities into Open Sky Museums." Artland Magazine, magazine.artland.com/street-art/. Accessed 17 Jan. 2025.

Hunter, Gary. Street Art from Around the World. Arcturus, 2012.

KET. Street Art: The Best Urban Art from Around the World. O’Mara, 2011.

Lewisohn, Cedar. Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution. Abrams, 2008.

Mailer, Norman. The Faith of Graffiti. It, 2009.

Mathieson, Eleanor, Xavier A. Tapies, and Glenn Arango. Street Artists: The Complete Guide. Graffito, 2009.

McCormick, Caro, Marc Schiller, Sara Schiller, and Ethel Seno. Trespass: A History of Uncommissioned Urban Art. Taschen, 2010.

Robinson, David. Soho Walls: Beyond Graffiti. Thames, 1990.

Shove, Gary. Untitled: Street Art in the Counter Culture. Pro Actif Communications, 2009.