Street art has in a few years become a global sensation. The history of street art started in the beginning of the 1970s with tagging and writing names on public locations, like for example buildings, walls, mailboxes and tubes. Street art is all kinds of art created in public space, very often without official permission. Street art is often connected with social and political meaning but can vary in styles and meaning. Modern forms of street art today are graffiti, stencils, paste ups, stickers and sculptures. The debate whether street art or graffiti is art or vandalism has been going on for many years and is still going on. Why do people consider artistic expression as a form for vandalism? Further in the text I am going to discuss just this, argue both for and against and eventually come up with my own opinion.
Street art can carry an important message, often connected to political issues or a memorial. Street artists can see empty walls in public locations as a blank canvas to a place to express their selves and their political meanings, just like people publish their meanings on internet to reach out. And I wonder, if street art is vandalism, how can some street artist and their paintings have so much impact in people. Banksy is a good example here. He is an anonymous street artist from England who was named one of the 100 most influential people. Banksy makes street art illegal but still sell his art for hundreds of thousands around the globe in different of galleries.
Street art and graffiti can be controversial and looked at as vandalism. Street art have traditionally been viewed as vandalism because this form of art is expressed by painting or spraying on a wall without permission from the private or public owner.
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I think it is difficult to trace the line between wrong and right when it comes to street art. I like some street art like for example murals with colourful paintings on walls and along railways, but I don’t like graffiti on a bus or train or on peoples own property like mailboxes. My meaning is that I prefer a wall designed by street artist better than a dirty wall. But at the same time, I think there should be some limits.
In conclusion I think the definition “art” is very individual and up to each one choosing to define it as art or not.
