A city’s main art galleries are rarely anything short of iconic both inside and out, from the Louvre to the Tate to the Met. But while galleries and the art within them might be the pinnacle of a city’s history and culture, there is a different language spoken in a city’s street art – one that is often more vibrant and spontaneous. As a public form of expression, street art is uniquely placed to provide insight into society and link art to our everyday lives.
Street art is inherently an even playing field, with many artists remaining largely anonymous: the artist behind Space Invaders is known only by his alias, “Invader”, and always appears masked in public; even Banksy’s real identity is unknown, although not without speculation. The democratic nature of street art is epitomized by Brandalism, who replace bus shelter ads with artwork criticizing capitalist culture. They’ve posted a guide to opening the cabinets these ads are housed in, suggesting that people who don’t like their work exchange it with their own – “[b]ecause after all,” they write, “they’re your streets”. Street art is public and largely uncensored, allowing for dialogue between artists, cities, and society to a greater extent than any other art form – take Daniel Soares’ Photoshop toolbar stickers pasted over fashion adverts, which directly co-opt advertising into the artist’s message against it, or the anti-FIFA graffiti that’s popped up in Brazil, providing an alternate and often ignored view of the World Cup.
Whether the canvas is an H&M ad or the streets of Rio de Janeiro, street art is unparalleled in its directness and use of existing spaces that are not specifically designated for art. This has its downsides: rather than being carefully restored and preserved as with art in galleries, street art is often impermanent – open to the elements and susceptible to being painted over or removed. In some cities, street artists also face the risk of being fined or even arrested for their work. But the use of communal space is also what gives street art its public reach and accessibility: when confronted by street art we are not bound by the preconceptions that often limit our discussion of art . Our knowledge about an artist’s fame or an artwork’s aesthetic and economic value often keeps us from voicing our opinions and influences the formation of those opinions. The very context of the art gallery is detached from the real world, and limiting – a curated environment that implies, almost insists, that the pieces within it are of artistic merit. With street art our lack of knowledge about the artist and the lack of a restricting context allow for merit and meaning to be assigned more freely.
Arthur Cheng’s Chinatown mural
In Vancouver, as in many cities, the range of street art is broad, from intricate tags to commissioned murals to abstract arrays of colour and pattern. Street art is by nature context-dependent – there is a reciprocal relationship whereby street art draws upon the community it is located in while contributing to and changing that community itself. This, too, is reflected in Vancouver – Arthur Cheng’s three-panel mural depicting scenes from Chinatown gone by at the corner of Columbia and Pender St. draws on the area’s rich history while revitalizing a neighbourhood that has, until recently, been growing stagnant; the vibrant colours and varied themes of the art covering the lengths of the alleys of Gastown are a way of breathing life into the drab gray walls they are painted on while reflecting the area’s eclectic and diverse nature. Street art is intricately linked to its location, whether that be at the level of an individual building, a neighbourhood, a city, or a country, and can exist in its original state only in that location, unlike paintings or sculptures which can be shipped around and slotted into different exhibitions and contexts without any drastic effects to their meaning.
An alley covered with street art near Vancouver’s Gastown area
A portrait of Picasso from the same alley
When I think of street art and the role it can play in building communities and giving voice to the voiceless, I am reminded of Alberto Giacometti’s Piazza, in which four figures are walking across a city square with a fifth standing stationary. In Giacometti’s sculpture, the figures’ paths, assuming they are walking at roughly equal paces, would never cross. Despite being created in the 40’s, Piazza encapsulates the isolated busyness of modern life, in which we are at once more connected and more unsociable than ever. Street art can be a way of pushing those paths into intersecting, of creating a common link between the many lives that pass through a street or neighbourhood in any given day. A way of prompting people into the moment of stillness achieved by Giacometti’s fifth figure: a temporary respite from the bustle and noise of our everyday lives, a moment of engagement with community and art that doesn’t require waiting in line or buying a ticket, but asks only that we pause and look.
By Nina Wang
Murality 