Over the years, graffiti has evolved in style and form as well as purpose. No longer about
just tagging a name, street art is instead about activism. Far from meaningless, the point and
purpose of street art is representative of our desire to communicate with one another and to
express ourselves. While street artists have varied motivations behind what drives their work,
street art tends to carry powerful, rebellious messages for activism. In Tony Silver’s hip hop
documentary, Style Wars, a young writer reveals to his mother that he just wants to “bomb”
trains and is not concerned about others. Street art has shifted significantly away from this, as it
is the intention of the art form to be understood, and:
Invites people to suspend, or at least modulate, their object position. [It is through
the] reclamation of public space, as creative destruction, wherein wrongly
privatized space is returned to its rightful owners. The built environment becomes
a canvas, and often a palimpsest, in the sense that even though the original is
overwritten, traces of it remain, restoring private to public, and engaging hitherto
passive passerby, galvanizing them into an active interaction. (Visconti et al. 514
15)
As a voice for engagement and activism, street art addresses the gap, and creates dialogue and
transactions between people, concerns, and their environments. It is at this level of participation
that spectators are drawn in as active participants through which discourse is achieved, and
action is instigated as a means to achieve some sort of social result. Through street art,
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connections among city inhabitants are established, and no longer is the passerby detached
without a sense of belonging, navigating through their town without meaningful consumption.
This is referred to as street democracy, and communicates the idea that there is a sense of
duty imparted to citizens. This is significant because the street artists create their own democratic
setting and assume the right to consume public space through their own means and in their own
terms. By redefining public space as if it were their own, street artists contribute to the collective
good and call for participation from their audience. A form of political resistance is created and
activism is enacted. Through the use of art in unsolicited places, street art is able to elicit
reflection and social action in which artists and the everyday person can collectively produce a
visual commons that invites the participation of all. Street artists play the role of curator in their
urban landscapes, and are thus able to circumnavigate the constraints imposed by laws and
regulation of the government and commercial world. This creates relationships of greater
connectedness amongst a city’s inhabitants and their environment.
Through this investigation, I have come to the conclusion that in the past twenty years
street art has evolved from simple graffiti writing into a social and artistic movement.
Enveloping the world in its many forms, I believe the art form has the power to effectively
communicate messages to the public that are accessible to all. The art form acts as an instrument
of protest and advocacy as well as a genuine reflection of the human existence. As illustrated by
the movements taking place in Brazil and Egypt, it is my opinion that street art and graffiti
provide a vital means of expression to those who have no voice. In the future, the art form will
continue to evolve around the world not only in the commercial realm, but also in the eyes of the
public as it becomes more perceptive to the art form as a powerful means of expression with the
ability to instigate social change.
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While many may argue that the mainstreaming of the art form weakens its message, I
think the commercialization of the art form has contributed to its power. Without the recognition
of American graffiti and street art by the art world and its galleries in the early 80s, the
phenomenon may not have spread around the globe to the same effect. I believe the watered
down forms of graffiti and street art that bombard the public through advertising allow them to
be more receptive to the art form in its purest form. Seeing the art form represented as a part of
everyday life through fashion, museum exhibitions, toys, and design, viewers are less threatened
by the unsanctioned works they see in the streets. While most of us are conscious of the fact that
street art blanketing the walls of our cities is usually illegal, we are still compelled to lift our eyes
and examine what it is we see. By examining modern murals, I have observed that while the end
remains the same, the means has shifted. It is the need for social change that has given rise to this
art form as an instrument, carried out as public protest art. Whether or not the viewer recognizes
artistic merit, the messages presented are too loud to be ignored.
It is not my intention to make a case for the legalization of graffiti and street art, but,
instead, to recognize that it is the unauthorized nature of these works—and anonymity—that
contribute to its very authority. Artists are able to directly communicate messages that convey
uncensored truths. Street art is the poetry of our time; it illustrates the cultural climate of our
cities by offering social and political commentary that speaks to our everyday lives, and it forces
us to become acutely aware of our surroundings. While there may never come a day that street
art is deemed lawful, Banksy asks us to:
Imagine a city where graffiti wasn't illegal, a city where everybody drew whatever
they liked. Where every street was awash with a million colours and little phrases.
Where standing at a bus stop was never boring. A city that felt like a party where
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everyone was invited, not just the estate agents and barons of big business.
Imagine a city like that and stop leaning against the wall—it's wet. (Banksy 85)
What started with a simple tag—just a name—and a marker, has evolved into a
global phenomenon that communicates to us an uncensored message of advocacy,
humanity, and freedom. Street art acts as a reflection of our very existence, and continues
to speak to us in ways we all seemingly can understand. Forcing us to pay attention, the
graphic displays of artistic expression and subversion shout out to us to stop, look, and
think about our environments and to actively assign meaning to what it is we see.