Bengtsen, P. (2018). Street Art and the Environment.

This is a paper that I wrote 5 years ago during my Master studies.

urbancreativity.org ; AP 2 - Associação para a Participação Pública, 2016

Aesthetic Energy of the City. Experiencing Urban Art & Space, 2016

To say that art usually depends on its context would be a truism. Nowadays there are fewer and fewer theorists who defend its absolute autonomy as if a work of art was a stand-alone being, entirely independent of place, time and even its author. Even if we tried to claim that, in the words of Clement Greenberg, a work of art is "something given, increate, independent of meanings, similars or originals" (Greenberg 1971: 6), and even if it is fully abstract, at the moment when it appears in the public space, it falls within an entire network of relations with the surface, space, time, motion and above all with the recipient. Whether it is a simple tag or a mural, a monument or an installation, regardless of individual intentions, the trace left by the artist in the public space will be always received in a particular environment. Street art is a particularly contextual type of art as its very source derives from interacting with a city, a street, a wall or a passer-by 1. Moreover, these contexts are always changing. Official art of a public nature-architecture, monumental sculpture, urban design-is supposed to intentionally build the public space in a certain manner and is usually created in the space provided. Street art-on the contrary-is created where it is not expected, it changes the existing space in an unpredictable way and surprises. This change, however, is usually not fundamental or permanent. For this reason, Alison Young uses the term "situational art" (Young 2014: 32-33) 2. Street art introduces minor changes 1 For the purpose of this text, the term "street art" is widely understood as various forms of artistic activities, legal as well as illegal, in the public space, excluding architecture and traditional monumental sculpture. I am, however, fully aware of conflicting opinions and the difficulty in defining this type of art, especially if its boundaries are placed based on the sociological point of view, in which street art is derived from illegal activities aimed at reclaiming the public space (Compare: Gralińska-Toborek, Kazimierska-Jerzyk 2013: 19-20). 2 Although I do not agree with the author that the main two reasons why street art "provokes affective intensities within the spectator herself " are: "the artist's desire to make unauthorised images in the face of their prohibition" and "the fact of trespass in the transgression of lines drawing distinctions between »your« property and »mine«" (Young 2014: 32). The knowledge of the illegality of an image need not affect

Space and Culture, 2018

Public art is an artwork or any visible component of art that embraces creativity and meaning, sited in public space. The emergence of public art in public space covers activities extending from functional, decorative, iconic, interpretive, integrated, ephemeral or temporary installation of artworks. Over the past thirty years, artists, designers and city planners have discussed and acknowledged the values and roles of public art that contribute to the public's well-being. Public art involves the artist in creating the artworks and the public to participate, whether directly and indirectly. The contributions of public art from the aspects of social, cultural and economic perspectives have been well noted in public art projects and publications. However, studies that examine the environmental contributions of public art to the city are still very minimal. The aim of this paper is to review the existing public art and eco-public art projects and analyse how they can contribute to the environmental sustainability through their contents and process. The study is conducted through a literature review of books, journal articles and online resources, focusing on the sustainability, awareness and environmental values perceived and associated towards eco-public art. The findings outline the relationships of public art in public space and how it may lead to encourage further directions to contribute to the dialogue between art and the public, and environmental sustainability through public art programmes. This is essential in determining future directions of how public art might be approached towards achieving greener cities

2020

This illustrated article discusses the various manifestations of street art-graffiti, posters, stencils, social murals-and the impact of street art on urban environments. Continuing perceptions of street art as vandalism contributing to urban decay neglects to account for street art's full spectrum of effects. As freedom of expression protected by law, as news from underprivileged classes, as images of social uplift and consciousness-raising, and as beautification of urban milieux, street art has social benefits requiring re-assessment. Street art has become a significant global art movement.

Contemporary street art is often discussed in media as a phenomenon undistinguished from graffiti. This oversimplification is rather misleading. Already in the 1980s, in connection to the mainstream success of the graffiti artist Jean-Michel Basquiat, concerns were raised about the need for a new category: post-graffiti. Typically, for the terms with such a prefix, there is a consensus that post-graffiti in principle differs from graffiti, but there is no consensus concerning the definition of the new category itself. In following discussion, I propose the concept of social banditry to describe contemporary street art (aka post-graffiti).

There is a need to create a documentation system adapted to facilitate the conservation and restoration of Street Art and Graffiti. Even though they are ephemeral manifestations of art, there have been some signs of the need for preservation mechanisms that would respect their own special features. For selected works we must establish a procedure that enables their preservation with the highest guarantee.