Abstract
The interest in street art has long involved a wide range of urban visual expressions such as murals, graffiti, tagging, and even urban defacement. These diverse aesthetic forms of expression have therefore attracted numerous theoretical and methodological approaches. Some analyze it from the standpoint of street art as an illegal act of vandalism, some as a political act of resistance, and some as a form of art and a new cultural capital. From a sociocultural psychology perspective, street art could be analyzed as a social act that intervenes in the urban space, thus opening up possibilities for individuals to shape their environment, and in turn having that new environment with its new affordances shape individuals back.
This entry will discuss different conceptualizations of street art, especially looking at how the definition of street art has developed over time. Then it will outline some of the methodological approaches to analyzing street art within visual culture. The entry focuses in particular on political messages of street art rather than their artistic forms, and the possibilities those messages could open up in visual culture and public discourse.
References
Agustin, O. G. (2017). The aesthetics of social movements in Spain. In S. H. Awad & B. Wagoner (Eds.), Street art of resistance (pp. 325–348). London: Palgrave Macmillan.
Avramidis, K., & Tsilimpounidi, M. (2017). Graffiti and street art: Reading, writing and representing the city (pp. 1–24). New York: Routledge.
Awad, S. H. (2020). The social life of images. Visual Studies., 35(1), 28–39. https://doi.org/10.1080/1472586X.2020.1726206.
Awad, S. H., & Wagoner, B. (2017). Street art of resistance (pp. 1–16). Cham: Palgrave Macmillan.
Awad, S. H., & Wagoner, B. (2018). Image politics of the Arab uprisings. In B. Wagoner, F. Moghaddam, & J. Valsiner (Eds.), The psychology of radical social change: From rage to revolution. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Blanché, U. (2015). Street art and related terms – Discussion and working definition. Street Art and Urban Creativity Journal, 1(1), 32–39.
Doerr, N., Mattoni, A., & Teune, S. (2013). Advances in the visual analysis of social movements. Bingley: Emerald.
Donald, M. (1991). Origins of the modern mind. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.
Glăveanu, V. P. (2020). Affordance. In: Glăveanu V. (eds) The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_10-2
Gottlieb, L. (2008). Graffiti art styles: A classification system and theoretical analysis. Jefferson: McFarland.
Hansen, S., & Flynn, D. (2015). Longitudinal photo-documentation: Recording living walls. Street Art & Urban Creativity Journal, 1(1), 26–31.
Khatib, L. (2013). Image politics in the Middle East: The role of the visual in political struggle. New York: I. B. Tauris.
Lefebvre, H. (1974/1991). The production of space. Oxford: Basil Blackwell.
Lewisohn, C. (2008). Street Art. New York: Abrams.
Ranciere, J. (2004). The politics of aesthetics: The distribution of the sensible (trans. Rockhill, G). New York: Continuum.
Reinecke, J. (2007). Post-graffiti: Between street, art and commerce. Berkeley: Gingko Press.
Ross, J. I., Bengtsen, P., Lennon, J. F., Phillips, S., & Wilson, J. Z. (2017). In search of academic legitimacy: The current state of scholarship on graffiti and street art. The Social Science Journal, 54, 411–419.
Scott, J. C. (1990). Domination and the arts of resistance: Hidden transcripts. London: Yale University Press.
Stampoulidis, G. (2019). Stories of resistance in Greek street art: A cognitive-semiotic approach. The Public Journal of Semiotics, 8(2), 29–48.
Stevenson, D. (2013). The city. Cambridge: Polity Press.
Vimercati, G. (2016, March 17). Blu v Bologna: New shades of grey in the street art debate. The Guardian. Retrieved from https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/mar/17/street-artist-blu-destroys-murals-in-bologna
Wacławek, A. (2011). Graffiti and street art. New York: Thames & Hudson Print.
Waldner, L. K., & Dobratz, B. A. (2013). Graffiti as a form of contentious political participation. Sociology Compass, 7(5), 377–389.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Section Editor information
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2021 The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG
About this entry
Cite this entry
Awad, S.H. (2021). Street Art. In: The Palgrave Encyclopedia of the Possible. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_154-1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-98390-5_154-1
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-98390-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-98390-5
eBook Packages: Springer Reference Behavioral Science and PsychologyReference Module Humanities and Social SciencesReference Module Business, Economics and Social Sciences