What Is Street Art?
What is street art? This paper offers a definition of street art as an art kind or art form based on its essential value: its subversiveness. It argues that street art is essentially subversive in virtue of using public space as a technical resource. By hijacking a portion of the urban landscape wit...
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Helsinki University Press
2022-03-01
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| Series: | Estetika |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://estetikajournal.org/articles/234 |
| _version_ | 1811339355517616128 |
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| author | Andrea Lorenzo Baldini |
| author_facet | Andrea Lorenzo Baldini |
| author_sort | Andrea Lorenzo Baldini |
| collection | DOAJ |
| description | What is street art? This paper offers a definition of street art as an art kind or art form based on its essential value: its subversiveness. It argues that street art is essentially subversive in virtue of using public space as a technical resource. By hijacking a portion of the urban landscape with its colourful forms and witty designs, street art challenges familiar ways of practising the city, while creating a ‘temporary autonomous zone’ of free expression. There, corporate control over the city’s visible surfaces is ridiculed and people reclaim their right to use the city. In this sense, street art functions as a carnivalesque tactic of social resistance, favouring the emergence of alternative ways to imagine our urban life and our uses of public space. By considering its subversiveness, one can also explain how street art (i) significantly differs from official public art; (ii) includes graffiti as its original and most radical style. |
| first_indexed | 2024-04-13T18:25:21Z |
| format | Article |
| id | doaj.art-1a1cba1ef19b4d1d9ba8e4d5066a098f |
| institution | Directory Open Access Journal |
| issn | 2571-0915 |
| language | English |
| last_indexed | 2024-04-13T18:25:21Z |
| publishDate | 2022-03-01 |
| publisher | Helsinki University Press |
| record_format | Article |
| series | Estetika |
| spelling | doaj.art-1a1cba1ef19b4d1d9ba8e4d5066a098f2022-12-22T02:35:15ZengHelsinki University PressEstetika2571-09152022-03-0159110.33134/eeja.234236What Is Street Art?Andrea Lorenzo Baldini0Nanjing UniversityWhat is street art? This paper offers a definition of street art as an art kind or art form based on its essential value: its subversiveness. It argues that street art is essentially subversive in virtue of using public space as a technical resource. By hijacking a portion of the urban landscape with its colourful forms and witty designs, street art challenges familiar ways of practising the city, while creating a ‘temporary autonomous zone’ of free expression. There, corporate control over the city’s visible surfaces is ridiculed and people reclaim their right to use the city. In this sense, street art functions as a carnivalesque tactic of social resistance, favouring the emergence of alternative ways to imagine our urban life and our uses of public space. By considering its subversiveness, one can also explain how street art (i) significantly differs from official public art; (ii) includes graffiti as its original and most radical style.https://estetikajournal.org/articles/234street artgraffitisubversivenesspublic spacecarnivalesque resistance |
| spellingShingle | Andrea Lorenzo Baldini What Is Street Art? Estetika street art graffiti subversiveness public space carnivalesque resistance |
| title | What Is Street Art? |
| title_full | What Is Street Art? |
| title_fullStr | What Is Street Art? |
| title_full_unstemmed | What Is Street Art? |
| title_short | What Is Street Art? |
| title_sort | what is street art |
| topic | street art graffiti subversiveness public space carnivalesque resistance |
| url | https://estetikajournal.org/articles/234 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT andrealorenzobaldini whatisstreetart |