Today a small collection of street art from the downtown Brussels.
Street art is any art developed in public spaces — that is, “in the streets” — though the term usually refers to unsanctioned art, as opposed to government sponsored initiatives. The term can include traditional graffiti artwork, stencil graffiti, sticker art, wheatpasting and street poster art, video projection, art intervention, guerrilla art, flash mobbing and street installations. Typically, the term street art or the more specific post-graffiti is used to distinguish contemporary public-space artwork from territorial graffiti, vandalism, and corporate art.
Artists have challenged art by situating it in non-art contexts. ‘Street’ artists do not aspire to change the definition of an artwork, but rather to question the existing environment with its own language. They attempt to have their work communicate with everyday people about socially relevant themes in ways that are informed by esthetic values without being imprisoned by them.[1] John Fekner defines street art as “all art on the street that’s not graffiti.”[2]
The motivations and objectives that drive street artists are as varied as the artists themselves. There is a strong current of activism and subversion in urban art. Street art can be a powerful platform for reaching the public, and frequent themes include adbusting, subvertising and other culture jamming, the abolishment of private property and reclaiming the streets. Other street artists simply see urban space as an untapped format for personal artwork, while others may appreciate the challenges and risks that are associated with installing illicit artwork in public places. However the universal theme in most, if not all street art, is that adapting visual artwork into a format which utilizes public space, allows artists who may otherwise feel disenfranchised, to reach a much broader audience than traditional artwork and galleries normally allow.
1 Schwartzman, Allan, Street Art, The Dial Press, Doubleday & Co., New York, NY 1985 ISBN 0-385-19950-3
2 Lewisohn Cedar, Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution, Tate Museum, London, England 2008 ISBN 978-1-85437-767-8Source: wikipedia
I like the stacking of art on the walls. You let your imagination to interpret stencils, graffiti, posters, etc. that lie next to each other.
Here are two blogs which I discovered recently:
http://warsawstreetart.wordpress.com/
http://eddiecolla.wordpress.com/
