More to see than a canvas in a white cube: For an art in the streets

Joe Austin

City, 2010, vol. 14, issue 1-2, 33-47

Abstract: Graffiti art is neither 'simply graffiti’ nor 'simply art’, but a new kind of visual cultural production that exceeds both categories. Graffiti art moved beyond the neo‐dada/pop art strains of (post)modern (galleried) painting and took the next dialectical step, out into the streets: no longer paintings on canvas that mimic the image‐strewn city walls, but the city walls themselves as the canvas for new image‐making. Street art has read the signs of this historic move correctly, and has followed graffiti art in 'taking place’ in the public sphere of the public square. These new art forms are an enhancement to contemporary urban living, a welcome growth in the living city, a disruption of the unexamined assumptions connecting urban visual culture and the existing social order. Another art city is now possible if the art in the street is taken seriously.

Date: 2010
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DOI: 10.1080/13604810903529142

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