Has Street art become pop art? Around us, the chilly concrete walls have become colourful canvases that come to life with each aerosol spray and sticker or poster application. These walls capture the spirit of the cities we live in as well as our individual identities. Vibrant colour and strong black lines appeal to us; they represent the political and cultural storylines that permeate our everyday lives and act as our generation's poetry. Their messages are too strong to ignore; instead of gazing down while we walk, they force us to raise our heads and look around.
Street art and graffiti are terms that are frequently used interchangeably to refer to any type of unapproved art in public or private settings. But every term has its own distinct motivations, styles, and goals. These works of unapproved art can take many different forms, such as street installations, yarn bombing, flash mobs, sculptures, tags, pieces, and sticker art. This art form gives infinite creative flexibility with no restrictions on form, medium, or meaning. Graffiti and street artists frequently promote activism and provide strong subversive messages, despite the varied reasons for their creations.
The Evolution of Street Art
Graffiti art became the creative response of urban youth to difficult urban surroundings, resulting in the emergence of a new community that was uncontrollable and autonomous. It took only five years for the art form of graffiti writing to develop from the early forms of tagging to a well-organised movement. This cultural movement was noteworthy because it demonstrated how disillusioned youth in New York City in the 1970s and early 1980s found an unusual outlet for their frustrations and boredom: visual art, not sports or music. Through the use of multiple visual languages that they remixed and quoted, this art form allowed young people to experience the world through different lenses. The earliest wave of graffiti writers had little to no official art school background and understanding, and this movement started on its own without any initial financial support or incentive. In the second half of the 20th century, this art movement may have reached a level of cultural relevance unmatched by any other.
Pop Art: A Brief Overview
Pop Art is a 1950s art movement that is still influential in contemporary art. The idea of confronting and subverting centuries of fine art history by making art out of commonplace, mass-produced products like magazines, packaging, and advertisements is at the heart of its philosophy. Collages by Picasso and Braque already included elements like beer labels and newspaper cutouts. Plastics made it feasible for modern consumer culture to exist and gave artists new mediums to work with.
Pop artists appropriated concepts from past movements such as Surrealism and Dadaism. The movement, which embodied optimistic ideas, emerged with the increase in consumerism that followed the conclusion of the World Wars and the ensuing paranoia. More broadly, Pop Art aimed to make an impression on lives outside of the art world by emphasising the positive parts of capitalism and minimising its drawbacks.
Intersecting Paths: Street Art and Pop Art
There has been commercialisation of both movements. Similar to pop art, street art has gone from being a niche to a mainstream phenomenon, with artists making large profits. Artists have used aspects of their immediate surroundings as inspiration for their works throughout the history of art. The Impressionists painted images of smoky train stations, boat-filled coasts, and agricultural landscapes. The speed at which cars move was shown by the Futurists. The montage of signs, handbills, posters, newspapers, billboards, and catalogues that could be seen all over Paris was reflected in the Cubists' integration of printed language. Similar to how pop art once defied standards in the art world, street art has become a mainstay in the market thanks to high-profile auctions and partnerships with prominent corporations.
Similar to pop art's criticism on consumerism and the media, street art frequently addresses social issues. In the years after World War II, popular culture in both Europe and America rapidly expanded. The American myths of glitz, grandeur, and benevolence were sustained by the aftereffects of military propaganda. Through its promotion of social stability and economic prosperity, advertising has contributed to the increasing consumerization of American popular culture. It advocated for all Americans to gain from democracy, tempting them with the idea that materialism would make them feel different and distinctive from the faceless, ordinary crowd.
Due to the effectiveness of advertising, notable technological developments, and the complexity of mass media, graphic commercial pictures rose to prominence in metropolitan America. These pictures were meant to give a clear message in an instant. Whether painted by hand or created by machine, the style was flamboyant, defined by vivid colours and sharp contrast, with solitary, centralised, and symmetrical figures that were simple to read. Both movements embrace imagery and symbols that have a broad appeal in order to reflect and critique modern culture on their platforms.
Pop art is often incorporated into the visual language of street art. The art form grew to represent a specific mindset. Similar to how hip hop culture was graphically portrayed by graffiti writing in the 1980s, street art is currently strongly linked to a sharing, compassionate, rebellious attitude against capitalism. Even though street art changed from graffiti, it never stopped evolving. Being "in your face," anti-authoritarian, irreverent, irrepressible, smart, and sardonic, this style speaks for the voiceless and marginalised. These characteristics have made street art more well-known throughout the world. While street art and its forerunner, graffiti, share many similarities, they are distinct in terms of form, style, medium, and intent. The phrase "street art" refers to a broad spectrum of artists operating globally in a variety of media. Pop art and street art are frequently referenced by street artists, resulting in a visual dialogue between the two genres.
Pop art aims to make art more accessible, and street art's public aspect supports this objective. The urban environment is vital because it provides street artists with a canvas and an expressive means of expressing their ideas. Cities are "physical and imagined spaces" where disparities are created and subsequently shaped, hence influencing city life. Street art is a way for people to express themselves and make observations about their urban surroundings. Owing to its pervasiveness, street and urban art have integrated themselves into a city's cultural fabric, adding to its distinct character. In addition to offering a creative aesthetic, it criticises the changes brought about by gentrification and globalisation. Pop art reached a wider audience through mass media, while street art physically interacts with its viewers by existing in urban areas and bringing art into daily life.
Conclusion
By highlighting injustices and promoting communication and interaction between people, their issues, and their surroundings, street art acts as a voice for advocacy and involvement. At this point, onlookers turn into active participants who encourage conversation and take action to improve social outcomes. Street art fosters relationships amongst city dwellers, turning onlookers from disengaged individuals into involved citizens who walk their streets with a revitalised sense of purpose and belonging. By claiming the freedom to use public space as they see fit, street artists build their own democratic spaces. They promote participation from their audience and advance the common good by reimagining public areas as their own.