Yes, graffiti and street art are forms of contemporary art. Street art is visual art created in public places for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms independent art, post-graffiti, neography and guerrilla art. Some link the origins of street art in France to the lyricism of the 1940s and the situationist slogans painted on the walls of Paris starting in the late 1950s.
Many forms of street art are emerging in Chicago, but some of the most popular artists to be seen everywhere in Chicago are Sentrock, Jc Rivera (The Bear Champ) and Hebru Brantley. Paris, France, has an active street art scene that hosts artists such as Space Invader, Jef Aérosol, SP 38 and Zevs. Street art is an art form that is displayed in public in surrounding buildings, on streets, trains, and other publicly visible surfaces. Pedestrians see how, in both rural and urban areas, street art has become part of their daily lives.
With this commercial angle, they can bring people into the world of street art and give them a better idea of where they came from. Melbourne is home to one of the most active and diverse street art cultures in the world and is home to pioneers in the stencil world. Street art often seeks to provoke thought rather than rejection among the general public by making its purpose more evident than that of graffiti. Artists from all over California and around the world will paint murals and create street art during a week-long festival.
The author Charles Panati indirectly referred to the general appeal of street art by describing Kilroy's graffiti as scandalous, not because of what it said, but because of where it appeared. Although street art may be everywhere in the world, the popularity of its artistic expression is relatively recent. As the 1980s progressed, there was a shift from text-based works of the early decade to visually conceptual street art, such as Hambleton's shadow figures. Some artists now offer tours of local street art and can share their knowledge, explaining the ideas behind many works, the reasons for the labeling and the messages portrayed in many graffiti works.
In general terms, small street art objects, such as paste paintings or tiled works of art, don't take long to show up. Street art has evolved from the first forms of challenging graffiti to a more commercial form of art, since one of the main differences now lies in the messages. Street art in the form of text or simple iconic graphics of corporate icons can become well-known but enigmatic symbols of an area or era.
