STREET ART

Street Art, also known as Urban Art or Grafitti (from the italian « graffio ») started in New York in the early 1970’s and soon developed as a « legitimate form of expression » in Brazil, France, Italy, Japan, as well as other countries.

This relatively new form of Art is still considered illegitimate in many countries, but the artists who create these visual images are mixed in their objectives.

Most are not concerned with the cultural or ethnic backgrounds of other artists, they simply want to create pièces that often are critical of politics and society, in général.

Some want to be treated as accomplished artists but others don’t want to be recognized.

They simply want to « deliver » their messages.

And they often sign their works with nicknames (Crash, Jonone, Blek le Rat, Updown, Mr One Teas, Slip Premier, Funkasty etc….).

Many éléments have evolved over the years.For example, many started with « bubble » and block lettering but that has given way to creating such subjects as people, symbols, abstract forms, etc….

The media used is varied such as aérosols, acrylics, stencils, airbrush, as well as oil pastels.

Forms of expression can be found on walls, stickers, mosaics, installations, sculptures, posters and vidéos.

The americans have given credibility to Street Art (Blade, Dondi, Seen, Iz The Wiz) but the movement has spread to many countries such as England (Banksy) France (Blek le Rat, Jerome Mesnager, Miss Tic, Jeff Aerosol) Italy (Blu) Brazil, to name a few.

The wonderful thing is that this Art form can be usually pleasing as well as affordable and is being exposed in very « High end » exhibitions.