Street Art

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 analyse 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 analysed 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 analysing 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.