Description
Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art.
Street art has evolved from the early forms of defiant graffiti into a more commercial form of art, as one of the main differences now lies with the messaging. Street art is often meant to provoke thought rather than rejection among the general audience through making its purpose more evident than that of graffiti. The issue of permission has also come to the heart of street art, as graffiti is usually done illegally, whereas street art can nowadays be the product of an agreement or even sometimes a commission. However, it remains different from traditional art exposed in public spaces by its explicit use of said space in the conception phase. Read more ↗
Key Artists
TAKI 183
Foot messenger and legendary early tagger whose ubiquitous writing across New York City subways sparked the modern graffiti explosion in 1970 and 1971.
Cornbread (Darryl McCray)
Pioneering Philadelphia writer often credited as the father of modern tagging who revolutionized urban public marking.
Dondi White
Celebrated master of complex wildstyle and massive 'whole car' subway murals who bridged street writing and fine art galleries in the late 1970s and 1980s.
Banksy
World-renowned anonymous street artist and stencil master whose subversive political commentary elevated global street art and public graffiti to major museum prominence.
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Began in the late 1970s writing cryptic, poetic SAMO aphorisms on Lower Manhattan buildings and subways before becoming a Neo-Expressionist superstar.
Famous Artworks
Children of the Grave Part 1
Dondi White · 1980
New York City Subway System / Museum of the City of New York Archives - Spray paint on subway car
SAMO© Tagging Campaign
Jean-Michel Basquiat · 1978
Lower Manhattan Buildings and Subway Stations, New York - Spray paint and permanent marker on brick
Balloon Girl
Banksy · 2002
Waterloo Bridge / South Bank, London - Stencil aerosol spray paint on concrete wall
Crack is Wack Mural
Keith Haring · 1986
East 128th Street and Harlem River Drive, New York City - Acrylic and spray paint on concrete handball court wall
Fun Facts
The modern graffiti explosion in New York City was catalyzed on July 21, 1971, when The New York Times published an interview titled 'Taki 183 Spawns Pen Pals,' revealing that TAKI 183 was a Greek-American teenager named Demetrius working as a foot messenger across the five boroughs.
↗ Source: en.wikipedia.org
In 1980, Dondi White painted 'Children of the Grave' across three entire New York City subway cars in a single night while photographer Martha Cooper documented the entire illegal process from train yard to tracks.
↗ Source: en.wikipedia.org
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