Street Art -How it has Turned Cities into Open-Air Museums

Street art is one of the fastest-growing artistic movements. You can see it in urban locations, bridges, and highway overpasses, drastically altering neighbourhoods worldwide. Street art, which can range from large painted murals on buildings to sprayed tags, stickers, and knitted fibres on telephone poles, often addresses political and social issues. This blog looks at street artists who have changed cities.

The History of Street Art 

People have sketched and painted on natural surfaces since prehistoric times when handprints and hunting scenes were painted on cave walls to symbolise small human groups’ wealth and solidarity. Street art originated from the 1920s and 1930s gang wars in New York City when name-based tagging and rudimentary graffiti appeared on the streets to demarcate gang-controlled regions. 

Due to a similar urban milieu, Southern California cities began to see art murals about the same time. Street art is well-established in Philadelphia, especially in New York City. New York was near bankruptcy in the 1960s. Spanish Harlem’s abandoned buildings, lots, factories, and construction sites became a canvas for a group of creative children. This created an art genre that evolved from signatures to subway car paintings.

The Golden Age of NYC

In the mid-1970s, various styles emerged as influential street artists competed for fame by uniquely writing their nicknames and pseudonyms. Martha Cooper is famous for photographing the artistic process and was the first street artist group. She helped the trend expand by publishing Subway art in the early 1980s. She began documenting New York street art and artists in the 1970s. Cooper’s small paperback became a style guide for graffiti artists and train writers in Europe and the US.

In the 1980s, street and graffiti art entered art galleries and institutions after New York street artists like Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat legitimised it. Since then, the art form has established itself in the art world and as a cultural phenomenon despite being outlawed in many countries.

Methods

Many techniques are used to make street art. Spray paint tagging is one of the fastest and most popular ways to display a work publicly. Markers, paint, and even painting fire extinguishers are also employed. Besides paint and markers, street artists can use stencils, stickers, posters, textiles, LED lights, mosaics, and video projection. Bringing colourful knitted or crocheted yarn or fibre to the streets is called “yarnbombing,” a new street art trend.

City governments allow graffiti but consider it vandalism. However, street art is often commissioned. Street art is primarily visual and contains graphic design elements, while graffiti always includes language in lettering and tagging. Graffiti art is a symbol of rebellion, especially in hip-hop and punk.

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