Street Art Brightens Things Up: When paint on walls moves from graffiti to art …

When paint on walls moves from graffiti to art …

Have we moved from anti-social graffitists defacing buildings to street art that beautifies our localities, raises social awareness and showcases artists? Perhaps not yet, but hopefully this starter guide to the evolution of street art in our cities might help. I hope you enjoy my side interest in inner urban art …

https___bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com_public_images_c3d2e0f3-64d0-4318-8f23-910994bc3f16_1024x768.jpeg

[3:50 minutes estimated reading time, 673 words]

Introduction

Graffiti has a bad reputation. It’s considered vandalism by many property owners and others and is, therefore, a crime. It’s also been associated with street gangs and other criminal groups to mark territory or celebrate other anti-social behaviour. And, local governments and property owners spend considerable amounts of money and time dealing with and removing unwanted graffiti.

But, writing on walls and other publicly visible surfaces has been going on for a long long time with examples [called ‘Graffito’] dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece and the Roman Empire.

In some areas [like Hosier Lane in Melbourne], the omnipresent graffiti has become a tourist attraction for many and a city chic selfie background.

And, more recently, some graffiti artists have become household names and art world darlings like the secretive and political Banksy who’s graffiti now sells for many hundreds of thousands of dollars. If you haven’t heard about Bansky, here’s a quick introductory video to his [or her??] story.

https___bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com_public_images_27e30038-3278-478e-9792-7739a80a4abf_1259x839.jpeg

So, the older tagger styles of graffiti have evolved over the last few decades into something new, different and better.

Street art comes of age

Street art is best described as unofficial and independent visual art created in public locations for public visibility. Street art is associated with the terms independent art, post-graffiti, neo-graffiti, and guerrilla art.

It can appear on buildings, on streets, trains, and on other publicly viewed surfaces on a small and large scale and involves more than just spray paint these days, including LED art, mosaic tiling, stencil art, sticker art, reverse graffiti, ‘Lock On’ sculptures, wheatpasting, woodblocking, yarn bombing, rock balancing and video projections.

Street art has moved from graffiti and vandalism to a medium where artists work to:

bring messages to an audience,
raise awareness of social and political issues,
display personal artwork, and
simply beautify areas.

Plus, many artists also enjoy the challenges and risks of installing illicit artwork in public places.

So, we’re now seeing the increased public acceptance and popularity of street art around the world so that it is now increasingly socially accepted and, even, respected in some places.

Plus, it’s generally understood that street art would not be the same without the medium being the street and buildings [as Marshall McLuhan said ‘the medium is the message’] and that the artworks are subject to weathering, changes or destruction that occurs because they are created on public or private surfaces which are neither owned by the artist or permitted to be worked on by the property owners.

This potential impermanence of the works of art and the public placement of the uncondoned works are what contribute to the meaning of the piece and therefore, what helps the growth of street art popularity.

I personally like street art and believe it improves the streetscape, creates interesting and changing surprises and gives localities character.

So, I’ll be showcasing the street art of Australian cities from time to time in this GoStrata Stak.

A starter gallery

But for now, here’s a quick gallery of street art from around the world as a primer to get started.

Enjoy!

https___bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com_public_images_07d34242-4f73-4b8a-83a0-6f238b8fef8f_3888x2592.jpeg

By Erdalito. - Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=15851257

https___bucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com_public_images_ede531ea-6bfa-4dde-8d9e-6fa1ab03bd51_1200x472.jpeg

José Pando Lucas - https://www.allcitycanvas.com/vhils-deja-increible-mural-en-parque-la-ruina-para-all-city-canvas-global-series, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=84770826