There is a misconception that the only manifestation of street art is graffiti, which is the covering of surfaces with drawings and stylized inscriptions. However, this is only one of its forms of expression, and almost any genre of fine art in the urban style can be attributed to this art form: wall drawings, images in public places on various objects, street installations, murals, stickers, posters, etc.
Can we say that everyone who embodies their creativity in the street space is a representative of street art? Sometimes people who belong to the category of “public art” are included in it: street musicians, poets, dancers, etc. The difference lies in two key features: the presence of financial benefits and the coordination of artists’ actions with local authorities, administration, gallery owners, etc.
Street art artists create works on their own initiative, spontaneously, emotionally. Many are provocative and are perceived as vandalism because they are placed without permission. This, in turn, often entails administrative responsibility and sanctions, so the anonymity of the author of the intervention is commonplace. However, it is worth noting that today there is a certain transformation of street art into public art.
During the Second World War in the American city of Detroit, there was a man named Kilroy. He worked hard at a factory that manufactured weapons. He was also very fond of leaving the inscription “Kilroy was here” on the boxes in which the ammunition made for the front was stored. The American soldiers liked it very much, and added a simple drawing to it and distributed it wherever they found themselves. This is how the phrase went viral and began to travel to the most unexpected places, and Kilroy’s “art”, which he hardly expected, became the starting point for the birth of the street artist movement.
Of course, this is just a version or even a legend. In fact, street art has been accompanying humanity throughout its history since the first cave paintings. But it doesn’t make sense to go into this much detail, because street art as we know it was created in the United States in its heyday in the 1960s and 1970s. This is not surprising, as it is one of the most urbanized countries in the world. And, for example, the city of Philadelphia remains the historical center of graffiti culture today.
In the 1970s, street art spread to New York. At first it was hard to call it that and it was popular among young people from low-income groups. Graffiti was also used by criminal groups to mark their territory. The Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan was the first to take up the baton of wall drawings and inscriptions. Around the same time, “tagging” was invented, and the tradition of leaving a street number next to a nickname emerged. Over time, rivalry arose among writers (graffiti creators) for recognition as the best. New complex styles and codes began to appear. Thus graffiti went a long way to evolve to the point where it turned from an act of vandalism into a real art.
