The well-documented origins of street art come from Philadelphia and especially from New York City. In the 1960s, New York was going through difficult times and was on the verge of bankruptcy. The desire of people to leave their mark on walls has existed for thousands of years. Archaeologists have found striped graffiti on the walls of the city of Pompeii.
However, in terms of contemporary street art, we can trace its beginnings to labeling or scratching initials or a name on public property in New York in the late 1960s. It also originated with graffiti artists of the 1970s and 80s who were looking for new places to make art, reacting and rebelling against the rules of society. Soon enough, photographs were not the only way to capture and “move” street art to different contexts. This phenomenon also presents difficulties for art historians, since the large number of street artists, as well as their tendency to maintain anonymity, hinder interaction with individual artists in a profound way.
Street art can also be done with templates, in which the creator repeats the image all over the surface to make a statement. Some apply the post-graffiti label to the work of street artists who also participate in the world of conventional art, although it is a bit inappropriate, since many of these artists continue to carry out illegal public interventions while participating in authorized exhibitions in galleries and museums. By comparison, street artists take the ideas and tools associated with graffiti and use them to create art that sends a message. Street art is generally created as a means to convey a message related to political ideas or social commentary.
In recent decades, this practice has spread all over the world, often maintaining elements of the American wild style, such as intertwined letter shapes and bold colors, but also taking on a local touch, such as street art from Japan inspired by manga. With the rise of artists such as Vhils or BLU, street art became a place for experimenting with different types of methodologies, but without ever renouncing its rebellious position in the face of the hegemonic patterns and structures of popular culture and the reality of the media. As Lachmann points out, instead of submitting to the evaluation criteria defended by the institutionalized art world, the first graffiti writers developed a completely new and independent artistic world, based on their own qualitative conception of style and on the particular aesthetic standards developed in the community to judge the content and technique of writers. Specialized computer programs allow artists (such as MOMO, born in San Francisco) to better plan their graffiti works and prepare their templates and posters of wheat pasta, while digital photography used together with the Internet and social networks allows them to document, share and immortalize works of street art, where before most of the pieces tended to disappear when municipal authorities removed them or painted them by other artists.
From murals painted in Latin America in the early 20th century to graffiti with spray cans of Latino gangs in the 1950s, street art has come a long way to become what it is today. At the same time, as technology advances, street art itself becomes increasingly virtual and is no longer limited to the place where it is created. Shutterstock has partnered with acclaimed contemporary street artist Bradley Theodore for an exclusive exhibition at Art Basel Miami Beach on December 1.As society's political and social climate continues to evolve and change in myriad ways, street art is sure to follow suit. Some of the first expressions of street art were undoubtedly the graffiti that began to appear on the sides of wagons and train walls.
Unauthorized street art interventions usually aim to surprise spectators by presenting a visually realistic and, at the same time, incredible situation. .
