To begin with, it is worth clearly defining the terminology and definition of the scope of those concepts that will be used in the future in this research work. Of all three terms that will serve as the foundation and basis for the study, the term “street art” is difficult to delineate within certain boundaries. Firstly, for the reason that this direction has existed for a relatively short time, so it not only has not found its clear definition, but is still not entirely in a stable position, balancing between the oppositions “art and not art.” Secondly, research achievements have not yet had time to take shape in theories that would be recognized in the scientific field. In connection with the term street art there arises large number demarcations in the understanding of the phenomenon itself, since street art is a term that generalizes all types of art that can be placed in the urban environment or be associated with it. Street art (street - art from English “street art”) includes such forms of art as graffiti, stencils, performances, etc.
“...The genre palette of street art is extremely vague: traditionally it includes graffiti, drawing using a stencil or template, putting up stickers and posters, grandiose wall paintings (murals), wrapping buildings and structures in matter or fabric, projecting video onto a building or vacant lots, urban guerilla, flash mobs, open-air installations and much more...". And the list goes on and on; modern technologies in the field of media make it possible to create more and more new trends in street art. The classification of artists and types of street art will be presented in the following paragraphs.
To illustrate the ambiguity of this term, it is worth noting the fact that the artists themselves answer the question “what is street art?” radically different:
“Street art is any art created on the street and within the street. Street art can also be understood as street musicians.”;
“Graffiti and street art are art different types. Street art is usually conceptual.”; “Street art is a dialogue between the artist and street space.”; “Graffiti (as the media is called) is about letters, names and fonts. Street art is intended to draw the public’s attention to certain ideas through stencils, stickers, posters, installations and other things.” From the above definitions, two patterns are visible: the first is that graffiti and street art are different phenomena, they should be distinguished, the second is that street art is most often used in two meanings. On the one hand, this is all art placed in the urban environment, on the other, street art is a special direction of street art that is addressed to the viewer, to society, in order to attract his attention to any problems, issues or topics, such art always contains a concept, an idea. Street art in this work will not be considered as collective image and a term that would combine all types of street art presented in urban space. For us, it is not so important to focus on its varieties and forms. Street art will be considered in its narrow meaning, as a special type of street art. Any artist wants to evoke emotions and a response in the soul of the viewer; this desire is combined with much more serious tasks. Focusing on truly important social problems: starving children in Africa, prosperous urban society in opposition to them, issues of military conflicts, the role of women in society, etc. Street art is always a timely response to current cultural, social and political events. What is important is not the form in which street art is presented, but what message it conveys to the viewer and how it influences them.
Street art as a movement of contemporary art does not have a specific set of terminology or theoretical basis on which it would be possible to rely in this research work.
Returning to the question of graffiti, we can say that as a movement it gravitates more towards a subcultural environment, towards a certain way of life. The artists themselves say that it is incomprehensible to the average city dweller; he cannot read the cultural and social codes of the message that are encrypted in graffiti inscriptions throughout the city.
“Graffiti is a representative activity in sociocultural terms that significantly influences a certain cultural layer.” Graffiti is the reproduction of the same symbol, sign, name, inscription; in this direction it is unlikely to find any message, idea or concept. Many interpret and perceive street art as post-graffiti, as if in evolutionary development, graffiti is the progenitor of street art. But in this work we will not focus on the differences between street art and graffiti. What is important is not the form that art takes in the street environment, what is important is whether the work is aimed at dialogue with the urban space and viewers.
“Street art, or otherwise the art of street interventions in all the diversity of its tactical methods and genre forms... Street art is a pathetic aestheticization of rebellion, a revolt not against individual systemic shortcomings, not against the market corruption of specific cultural characters or institutions, but against everything and everything against the capitalist way of life, against exploitation, precarity, racial and class inequality, police violence and the arbitrariness of large developers, the steady increase in unemployment and social insecurity, etc. But this is a revolt without a program, without clear rhetoric and clear addressing, a revolt that occurs spontaneously in at the moment and not formalized into organized resistance...” - this view of street art is expressed by Dmitry Golynko-Volfson in his article “Street Art: Theory and Practice of Living in the Street Environment.” Of course, rebellion in a sense cannot be separated from street art; it is not necessarily a fight against the authorities or the law, most often it is a fight against the entire system as a whole, an attempt to go beyond the framework of this system. It is worth saying that street art should not support such protests and such flirting with the authorities, as a result of which people may die or suffer. An artist, when causing a riot, must think about the consequences. All the “diseases” of society are crystallized in street art, this is definitely problematic and controversial art, it is one of the “channels” for the release of accumulated questions, indignation and indignation. With the help of art, one can highlight this or that problem and focus attention on it, but it is impossible to solve it using such methods. Spanish artist Isaac Cordal believes that street art and graffiti are the skin of the city, its shell, by which one can judge the state of society, and this is definitely worth agreeing with.
When starting to consider the history of street art and graffiti in Russia, we should turn to the history of the origin, emergence and development of these trends abroad, especially in the USA and Europe. Based on and generalizing the opinions of researchers involved in the historical side of the issue, we can say that the appearance of graffiti dates back to the late 1960s in the USA. Namely, graffiti is initially formed in Philadelphia, and then moves to New York. Initially, graffiti had a purely utilitarian nature and was used to delimit territory between marginal layers of society and its criminal elements. In fact, graffiti as a method of application has existed since very long and ancient times, we can say that rock painting- this is already the first graffiti.
Back in the distant 1930s French artist Brassaï finds and takes photographs of drawings that are carved into the facades of buildings, which refers us to rock paintings. This kind of beginnings of street art are of an unconscious nature; this is seen as a manifestation of subconscious desires and energy. Graffiti of the 30s and 40s are primitive, irrational, naive, like drawings by children or mentally ill people.
If we talk about tools that allow you to create graffiti in the modern sense, they appear in 1949, namely Robert Abplanalp invents the spray valve modern type. In the same year, Edward Seymour launched the production of aerosol paint. In the USSR, in 1970, in Latvia, in the city of Riga, the LatvBytKhim enterprise was founded - the largest manufacturer of household chemicals in the Soviet Union. This plant also produced spray paint, limited to three colors. After the collapse of the USSR this enterprise ceases to exist.
Then street art continues to develop in France within the framework of situationism, the ideological movement of Guy Debord and Raoul Vaneigem. Their ideas opposed the "society of the spectacle" based on consumption, capitalism, utilitarianism and urbanism. This movement in the form of slogans, leaflets and posters penetrates Paris in 1968. Many ideas of that period were addressed to urban space. Guy Debord introduces the concept of “Psychogeography”, in which he focuses on the emotional component of urban places, and Ivan Shcheglov in his manifesto formulates a number of utopian ideas in the “Formula of New Urbanism”. In the future, these kinds of ideas and this direction will be developed within the framework of post-situationism, in which it is worth noting Ernest Pignon-Ernest and Gerard Zlotikamien. These figures influenced the formation and development of the street poster school in France. This period was strongly connected with the political and social situations in the country, which resonated in the works of artists. Even before graffiti entered the United States in the form of a subculture, graffiti made with aerosol paint was already appearing in France in the 1970s.
In the 80s, French street art changed the direction of its development towards the fight against the then education system, the commercialization of art, the fight against the art system that had developed at that time.
In the 70s, Harald Naegeli, who lived in Switzerland, was active in the field of street art. Then he emigrates to Germany, where he continues to pursue the previously started direction.
But it was in the post-war years in America that this became cultural phenomenon urban environment. Back then, thanks to graffiti, people were engaged in some kind of self-PR - they replicated their names and nicknames on various surfaces. Every graffiti writer is interested in having his name seen by as many people as possible every day, which is why they were mostly focused on the metro, into which thousands of citizens descended every day. This is associated with the emergence of such a trend as trainwriting - graffiti applied to subway, suburban and long-distance trains. The New York authorities developed mechanisms to combat this kind of graffiti; they did not release painted trains on routes, but immediately sent them for repainting, then there was no point for the writer, because no one had time to see his drawing. There is also the most durable one - this is freewriting - drawing on freight cars; drawings from them may not be removed for years.
In France and the USA, the emergence of graffiti and street art is associated mainly with the 1960s, this is due to a number of social and cultural factors: on the one hand, the post-war high unemployment rate, which indicates the availability of free time, also during this period others began to emerge subcultural groups, which was also a kind of catalyst, panel construction of cities, and accordingly the formation of backward and disadvantaged areas in cities, the flourishing of mass culture.
French philosopher Jean Baudrillard reflects in his work “Symbolic Exchange and Death” on the phenomenon of graffiti that swept New York in those years. He attributes the status of a symbol, a sign, to graffiti tags, indicating the isolation of the emerging subculture and an attack on the viewer, like a coded system, incomprehensible to everyone, but quite aggressive, persistent and influential. “...graffiti has no content, no message. This emptiness forms their strength. It is no coincidence that the total offensive at the level of form is accompanied by a retreat in content. This follows from revolutionary intuition - the guess that deep ideology now functions not at the level of political signifieds, but at the level of signifiers, and that it is from this side that the system is most vulnerable and must be destroyed. This clarifies the political meaning of graffiti.” Street art moves away from the emptiness of graffiti and the lack of message; the power of street art already lies in the possibility of transmitting certain ideas and meanings important to society a large number citizens living in urban space.
Jean Baudrillard also says that “graffiti was a new type of performance on the stage of the city - the city no longer as a concentration of economic and political power, but as a space/time of the terrorist power of the media, signs of the dominant culture.” Continuing the tradition of graffiti, street art is a kind of statement and counterbalance to both the economic side and the political side of life, street art continues to fight the dominant mass culture - the media, advertising.
“Opposition against semiocracy, this newest form of the law of value - the total mutual substitution of elements within the framework of a functional whole, where each element is understood only as a structural variable, subordinate to a code. Such are, for example, graffiti. Indeed, in such conditions, it becomes radical rebellion to declare: “I exist...”. Street art makes less claims to the creators' statement about its existence or presence in urban space, moving away from the rebellious spirit of graffiti, but it also continues the struggle with interchangeable parts of the city, street art itself makes any place unique, impossible to replace it with such the same element in the space of the city.
“Graffiti is trying to confuse the usual system of names, to destroy the framework of the usual everyday urban environment. Graffiti goes against all the advertising and media signs that fill the walls of our cities and can create the deceptive impression of the same spells. Advertising was associated with a holiday: without it, the urban environment would be dull. But in fact, it represents only cold liveliness, a simulacrum of appeal and warmth, it does not give a sign to anyone, cannot be picked up by an autonomous or collective reading, and does not create a symbolic network.” Street art, like graffiti, seeks to confuse the system of city names and habitual everyday practices. A striking example, in this regard, may constitute interventions. Urban interventions should be understood as visualized statements made in public space out of a feeling of deep personal dissatisfaction with certain aspects of city life or because of deep dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the entire world order, the structure of society, etc. Moreover, interventions are aimed at using existing city resources: road signs, markings, traffic lights, telephone booths, etc.
The French researcher J. Baudrillard also in his book considered the problem of “legalized street art”, which was an initiative of the city, and specifically the New York City Walls project:
“... Everything is not ambiguous: we have environmental policy, large-scale urban design - both the city and art benefit from it. The whole city is becoming art gallery, art finds itself a new field of maneuver in the city. Neither the city nor the art changed their structure, they only exchanged their privileges. This kind of street art plays on architecture, but does not break the rules of the game. They recycle architecture in the realm of the imaginary, but retain its sacred character (architecture as a technical material and as a monumental structure, not excluding its social and class aspect, since most of these City Walls are located in the “white”, comfortable part of cities). However, architecture and urban improvement, even transformed by imagination, cannot change anything, since they themselves are the essence of the media, and even in their most daring plans they reproduce mass public relations, that is, they do not give people the opportunity to collectively respond”12. A good example of the fact that a city’s initiative does not always look worthy; rather, in this case it is perceived as feigned and naive, inseparable from the entire monolith of urban space, which gives rise to a number of problems in perception street works residents of New York. The negative point is the lack of feedback and decision-making on the initiative of city authorities and the media unilaterally. This example shows that the destruction of connections between three actors: the government, citizens and artists gives rise to a number of problems.
Also, researcher J. Baudrillard says that, evaluating street art with standard aesthetic criteria, we can talk about some of its weaknesses. For all its spontaneity, collectivity and anonymity, it still correlates with its material carriers and with the language of painting. Therefore, there is a danger that it will become just a decorative work, and will be admired only for its artistic value.
Then some evolution, the development of graffiti, is outlined, and by the 1970s, artists painting on the streets began to be invited for the first time to participate in exhibitions; these were the first steps towards the “legitimization” of graffiti, its perception as art. The issue of housing street art and graffiti has puzzled many since those times. In Europe in the 1980s, graffiti was just being established, and it was closely connected with hip-hop culture. It is worth noting two cult films that were catalysts for the spread of graffiti around the world - “Wild Style”, “Style Wars”. A landmark book for the sub cultural environment became "Subway Art", which was released in London. This geographic movement is associated with increased penalties in the 1980s in New York. In Europe in the early 80s, government authorities treated inscriptions as childish pampering and did not pay attention to it. And already in the 1990s, a completely new form appeared, a new urban language, with its imagery and symbolism - “post-graffiti,” a term that can be seen among many researchers. The question arises: is it possible to equate street art with post-graffiti? This is only possible if post-graffiti is focused on the viewer and addressed to him; at the beginning of its appearance, graffiti did not have the goal of communicating and building a dialogue with the viewer, but when the connection with the viewer is established, then we can talk about post-graffiti graffiti and its next stage of development - street art.
There is a connection between the emergence of creative industries and street art; the educational conditions were similar: the beginning of the development of mass communications, the withering away of industrial orders and the emergence of post-industrial conditions, the beginning of globalization processes, the dominance of mass culture, etc.
Graffiti, like street art, was influenced by previous trends fine arts such as futurism, suprematism, dadaism, surrealism, especially French surrealism of the 1920s.
In fact, back in 1918, the Futurists had decrees on moving art and creativity to street space, poster and slogan art in the USSR; in part, such ideas can be classified as street art, but rather it appears in the form of protoforms.
If we talk about Russia, then graffiti begins to penetrate from the West only in the late 1980s - 1990s. In the beginning it is established rather as a subcultural basis. Thanks to the development of hip-hop culture, graffiti began to rapidly spread throughout the world and in the mid-1980s graffiti reached the USSR. The appearance of graffiti in our country is associated with the political thaw of the 80s, when the Iron Curtain began to gradually “open” and young people began to become interested in the culture that was already developed abroad. In 1985, a fashion for breakdancing and hip-hop culture in general appeared in our country, part of which was graffiti. The first artists were dancers who part-time painted graffiti and designed the decorations for numerous break festivals that were held throughout the country. At the same time, wall graffiti began to appear in Kaliningrad and Riga, where they were established quite quickly. The first pioneers were the Riga Rat - from Riga and Max Navigator from Kaliningrad. This all relates to the first wave of the appearance of graffiti in our country, then there was a break that was associated with the collapse of the USSR. The geography of graffiti distribution was as follows: Riga - Baltic states - Kaliningrad - Saint Petersburg- Moscow.
The second wave of graffiti came to Russia in the mid-1990s, also thanks to festivals: Snikers Urbania, Adidas Street Ball Challenge, Nescafe festival in Moscow. This kind of emergence was associated with the commerce and marketing of companies. Western manufacturers entered the Russian market and began to promote their products, conduct advertising campaigns, and attract young people. Among the writers of the second wave we can note - from Moscow: Shaman, Worm, Zmogk, Mark, in St. Petersburg: Fuze, SPP team, Yankee, Zaaf, Sclerosis and others. In the late 90s, with the development of the Internet, information became more accessible, and the development of graffiti became widespread. In 2001, the first graffiti magazine “Spray it” was published by the SPP team.
Teams for writers during this period become like a family in which they begin to find shelter, protection and similar ideas and thoughts. The appearance of graffiti at the beginning was dispersed and at a low rate; Europe became the center of imitation. Writers do not separate the practice of street art and graffiti from their lives, from their way of thinking; for them it is a whole world - with certain people, places, enemies and the usual attributes of the urban environment. First of all
graffiti and street art were a way of life, creativity, inner world, part of the artists themselves and a means of self-expression. For graffiti, the important indicator is not even the quality, style or plot, but the ability to combine all this with the speed of application. Also, at the beginning of its development, graffiti was more protest, it had more subculturally expressed features.
“The special development of street art began precisely in the 2000s, this is due to a number of factors. Close attention to street art in the 2000s is associated with the exhaustion and routinization of the systemic field of art and the request for an extra-systemic avant-garde, exhibited not at traditional museum and gallery venues, but in unexpected urban areas, usually not endowed with a stable cultural status. Such an extra-systemic avant-garde deliberately opposes itself to both the commercial mainstream and the art of political activism with their focus on their own resources of institutional support and cultural audience. In the 2000s, “contemporary art” in its systemic form often ceased to be identified with intense intellectual work, the industry of knowledge production or new subversive meanings, being reduced to a set of individual strategies for interacting with prevailing trends. And street art, which implies a radical refusal to be included in the mainstream cultural process, has become its non-systemic alternative. The generation of the 2000s discovered in street art the same inexhaustible potential for renewal that the previous generation found in the art of new technologies, designed to transform traditional codes of visual representation with the help of electronic media.”
There is such an opinion about the exhaustion and routinization of art in the early 2000s; the search for new surfaces and territories of development by contemporary art seems important - it is realized in street space. Then it was a completely new direction of art, opposing itself to the systemic order and ideas; street art is certainly associated with the search for new ways of self-expression of artists. It is also impossible to ignore the fact that along with this trend, it is possible to borrow ideas from the West, the very idea of street art.
It is also impossible to ignore the mechanisms of borrowing from abroad and various trends that have existed and exist in many areas. The catalyst for these processes was the presence of a common information field and the Internet, which simplified the spread and emergence of street art in Russia.
“Street art asserts dominance social function art, also removes art from its traditional museum and gallery space and moves it into the lively and unpredictable context of the street.” . This is indeed true regarding the two main features of street art, street art is currently concentrating on social issues and problems, but in relation to the museum space the trends are slightly transformed; street art combines the artistic and the social. If at the beginning of its appearance in Russia street art was completely abstracted from the museum space, art market, galleries, and commerce, now there is a bifurcation into two camps. Many artists understand and accept the rules of existence of a capitalist society.
“Despite the fact that at times street art addresses the traumatic aspects of collective memory, in most cases it works with actual modernity. Essentially, street art creates design modern life, carried out not by professional, specially trained developers of the urban environment, but by the efforts of nameless self-taught people who treat the urban environment as a testing ground for terrorizing the bourgeoisie with images that irritate him. Depending on whether the protest or entertainment component predominates in this design, we can talk about either political street art or its advertising and commercial version (for example, in Berlin in the 2000s, street art became the object of expensive tourist excursions, and many street artists cooperate with corporations in the production and promotion of brands).
“Identifies the two most likely prospects for the further sociocultural development of street art. Either it will remain a means of individual self-expression and the implementation of private career initiatives, or it will develop into a mass liberation movement, becoming a platform for the solidary struggle of the multitude to regain the common good, city streets and the entire urban living space.” One can trace a certain emergence and emergence of street art from the graffiti sphere. This movement is also possible in other areas: design, illustration, contemporary art in galleries and art markets. The direction of this kind of movement goes in two directions: from graffiti to other areas or from other areas to street art, graffiti. But most often it is impossible to draw a clear line; these spheres simultaneously interact and coexist with each other.
There is an agreement among artists not to paint on monuments and significant cultural objects. There is an unspoken code, an agreement, but this is all very subjective, reasonable people understand that you cannot draw on the Pushkin monument, libraries, etc. If writers and artists violate these unspoken rules, then they are very much condemned within the community of artists and writers.
Street art is associated with various fields: graffiti, contemporary art, creativity, design, popular culture, marketing and branding.
Most often in street art, artists use recognizable symbols and images.
At this point in time, street art is no longer perceived by viewers live, but through the Internet. The Internet is becoming a new platform for the development and dissemination of street art.
The development of street art was influenced by different directions and factors - propaganda, advertising, situationism, muralism, monumental art of the USSR, public art, the appearance of graffiti was influenced by other factors, which distinguishes these two movements in their basis and in their purpose. At the same time, one cannot ignore the fact that many artists grew up and came out of the environment of graffiti writing, which leaves a certain influence on their work. Many street artists were graffiti writers, and some of them continue to replicate a certain image in their works, which only communicates their affiliation with a specific author. For the most part, the urban environment itself and the context in which their works are placed are unimportant for such artists. Distinctive feature The thing about graffiti artists is that it doesn’t matter to them where they reproduce their pseudonym, the main thing is that it is as noticeable as possible. Many artists do not always feel responsible for what they place in urban space.
Popular street artists become brands, they begin to be valued not so much for their creativity, but for their loud and popular name. In this case, viewers cease to evaluate the work of such writers critically. The current conditions and fame of such artists may not allow them to develop further in their work.
Majority street artists not focused on theory, but only interested in practice. Not every artist thinks about why he does it, what exactly he wants to say with his work and what he puts into it. This largely distinguishes modern artists from figures of the past who wrote manifestos, developed theories, and published books. Modern street artists simply draw their works, then post them in virtual space.
The artistic movements of the twentieth century had a certain ideology, while to some extent denying the previous experience of art of the past. The artists thereby tried to bring something new, break everything old, show that time has changed, and art should also transform along with it. And compared to this, street art today does not have such a pronounced ideology and does not try to introduce something radically new, street artists do not try to destroy everything that came before them. On the contrary, they try, consciously or unconsciously, to draw inspiration from completely different artistic directions and movements. And often you can trace some connection between the art of the past and present and the works of street artists.
Street art has become so popular because most often it is more accessible to viewers both physically - presence in street space, in virtual space, and in content.
It is worth noting that now graffiti and street art are fashionable labels that are successfully exploited by corporations and brands, the state and other institutions.
In street art at the moment there is a lack of professional critics and theorists, especially in Russia, who could competently evaluate the works of artists, who could set some kind of benchmark for viewers, by which they, in turn, could evaluate the quality and content one or another job. It is difficult for viewers to evaluate street art based on previously acquired fundamental knowledge.
One of the main questions still remains unanswered: can everyone who paints on the street be called artists? This question worries street writers themselves, since there is no clear answer to it yet.
To summarize, we can say that valuable works are those to which one would like to return and find in them again and again something new, valuable and different. For street art from this perspective, unambiguity and the absence of multiple meanings are dangerous. Graffiti and street art have already become part of modern art, but only best works and authors.
Graffiti “Window to Europe”, Tsarevich Embankment, Vladivostok, 2012. Concrete Jungle Architectural Bureau (founders: Felix Mashkov and Vadim Gerasimenko).
The time when graffiti was considered vandalism has sunk into the dark past. Today, street artists have taken their rightful place on the pedestal of contemporary art. City authorities, who previously hounded creators to the fullest extent of the law, are now lining up for contracts to design public spaces. Street artists not only make our cities beautiful and interesting; they are often able to rethink the existing urban landscape and change the architectural context.
Following the great names of the founders of street art - (Keith Haring), (Banksy) and (Jean-Michel Basquiat) a huge number of artists took to the streets to paint everything they could get their hands on. Street artists themselves believe that it is high time to release art from museums onto the streets. And although the typology of contemporary art is difficult to force into a strict framework (post-graffiti, “intervention”, muralism, etc.), the only thing that city residents and tourists want is entertainment, scale, aesthetics, a philosophical message and bright colors. This is exactly what the viewer gets from the street artist.
Especially for our readers, we tell you about the biggest names in the world of contemporary street art and invite you to enjoy a selection of the most spectacular street art projects.
Painting Lampas
Calligraphy with an area of 1625 sq. meters took the artist two days of work and required 730 liters of paint.
The artist Arseny Pyzhenkov, originally from Korolev, is known throughout the world as (Pokras Lampas). The funny one is no longer a pseudonym, but an official name, it was formed from the old expression “paint” among graffiti artists and the most absurd rhyme to it. Painting works in the “calligraffiti” style, as is obvious from the name - at the intersection of graffiti and calligraphy. He is constantly busy with new projects, and there are traces of fresh paint on his hands.
The artist was only able to paint half of the tunnel from the Atrium to the Kursky Station. The reason is that part belongs to the shopping center, and part to Russian Railways, and the latter refused to provide their section to Pokras.
The artist was glorified by his project to create the largest calligraphy in Russia (and indeed in the world) on the roof of Red October in 2015. In 2017, Pokras painted the tunnel from Kursky Station to shopping center"Atrium" in Moscow, inspired by the works of Russian avant-garde artists, quotes, and Mayakovsky. A high-profile international project in the calligraphist’s career was painting the roof of the Palace of Italian Civilization (Palazzo Della Civilta) in Rome, which also serves as the headquarters.
“It is important that creativity does not turn into a craft. The main thing is to trust your intuition and do only what you sincerely believe in. Honest creativity will always be appreciated,” Pokras Lampas.
Duo Aesthetics
The Moscow region post-graffiti duo Aesthetics group has existed since 2004. The composition of the participants and the concept have changed over time, at the moment they are Petro (Petr Gerasimenko) and Slak (Ilya Blinov).
Collaboration between Petro and Slak as part of the pilot project of the “Objects of Nature” festival. Aerosol paint. Kotka (Finland), 2014.
The team has gone from classic graffiti to mixing it with abstract painting. The artists work at the intersection of avant-garde and graffiti; the author's style is expressed in rich colors and broken lines.
Untitled diptych. The left side is Slak, the right side is Petro. Aerosol paint, acrylic. Satka, Chelyabinsk region, 2017.
Misha Most
Moscow artist Misha Most has been doing graffiti since 1997 and has been creating paintings since 2004. The author quickly moved from the category of “street authors” to full-fledged artists. Almost all of the author’s works are devoted to the human future.
In 2017, the artist created the largest wall painting in the world covering an area of 10 thousand square meters. meters. The canvas for the work “Evolution 2.1” was the building of an industrial complex in the city of Vyksa ( Nizhny Novgorod region).
“Evolution 2.1”, Vyksa, Nizhny Novgorod region, 2017.
In the fall of the same year, Misha taught me how to draw a drone. It was based on the approach of “creating a picture without an artist.” Drones are widespread these days, with people constantly training the devices to do something new. And the artist decided to bring this “something new” to art.
The project “Farewell to Eternal Youth” consisted of several stages. To begin with, Misha drew the object on the tablet, then the image was transferred to a special program in which the drone “flies”. Then, to get the finished piece, you just had to press a button - the machine did the rest.
“Farewell to eternal youth”: Misha Most and drone.
Camilla Walala
Actually, a British artist (Camille Walala) is a textile designer by profession. But the education she received never truly captivated her. Lately Camilla is actively called upon to design concrete boxes, unremarkable facades and pedestrian crossings.
Splice Post building, London.
Walala works on the verge of contemporary art and architecture, infusing energy and optimism into the environment with the help of bright colors and patterns. The group had a huge influence on the artist’s work.
Children's playground in London.
It was in the style of this design association that the author decorated the facade of an industrial building in Brooklyn with a 40-meter mural. The concept is based on optical illusions, contrasting colors and repeating L-shaped motifs.
Facade in the spirit of the Memphis group, Brooklyn (New York).
Felice Varini
The canvas of a Swiss by birth and an inveterate Parisian by residence (Felice Varini) was architecture itself. The artist is famous for his signature optical illusions. The author's works are depicted on the walls of buildings and sidewalks, in parks and squares.
Carcassonne, France, 2018.
At first glance, the image created by Varini is not perceived as a whole; it breaks up into separate fragments. And only from a certain “correct” point of view does the ornament form a holistic image. Varini’s works look so unreal that the first reaction of the human brain is: “This is Photoshop!”
Lausanne, Switzerland, 2015.
Grand Palais, Paris, France, 2013.
The genre that Varini chose for himself is called anamorphosis. The main topic creativity has become geometry - various regular figures: circles, triangles, rectangles. Varini’s works are like mirages in the desert: a person watches a hypnotic spectacle and suddenly, one wrong movement, and the vision dissolves.
Roof of the “Dwelling Unit” by Le Corbusier, Marseille, France, 2016.
Ill-Studio
Artists, in collaboration with fashion brand Pigalle, have radically changed the appearance of a basketball court in Paris. In 2015, the sports facility was dressed in sharp colors and clear geometric shapes based on the work of Kazimir Malevich.
The Pigalle Duperré site in Paris is squeezed into a narrow space between buildings, 2015.
In 2017, the studio turned to softer, but no less effective gradient shades. “When working on this platform, we wanted to explore the relationship that has developed between sports, art and culture over many decades,” say the authors of the project.
Pigalle Duperré, Paris, 2017.
The project of a bright basketball court was heatedly discussed on the Internet around the world. The modern Instagram generation clearly liked the space. Of course, this is not the only sports facility that has such a non-standard coloring. For example, in the Belgian city of Aalst, artist Katrien Vanderlinden worked on transforming another basketball court. The bright surface looks most impressive from the altitude of the quadcopter.
Basketball court, Aalst, Katrin Vanderlinden.
And in Ravenna, Italy, the urban environment was enlivened by another basketball court. The update was carried out by street artist Gue.
Basketball court, Ravenna, street artist Gue.
Daniel Buren
The work of the French conceptual artist (Daniel Buren) has a constant element - stripes. It is interesting that the author found the conceptual theme thanks to an accident. Once on the canvases he ordered there were traces of packaging - streaks that filled all his work, regardless of the context.
Shadows through Daniel Buren's stained glass are like works of art.From the canvas, the Frenchman moves on to the urban environment - he marks the metro stations and courtyards of Paris with stripes. Since the 70s, the artist has been working with multi-colored glass and light. He turns building windows into stained glass and studies the shadows they cast. Together with the Italian gallery Continua, Buren created a large-scale installation directly on the facade of the building of the Parisian gallery Aveline in his signature style - with vertical monochrome stripes and stained glass.
Aveline Gallery, Paris, Daniel Buren.
Chantel Martin
The style of the young British artist (Shantell Martin) is easily recognizable. With black and white sweeping drawings, Chantel is ready to decorate anything - paint city walls or decorate new collection shoes or clothes.
Street art (street art) is a trend in contemporary art, a feature of which is the use of intracity areas for various kinds of art projects.
It is difficult to name the exact date of the founding of street art as an art movement. Historically, the term itself became popular in the early 80s, at the same time it began to enter the lexicon of various types of art critics, but, of course, the genre itself arose much earlier.
Because street art does not have clear conceptual or technical boundaries; it is impossible to identify specific ideological predecessors for street art as such. In this genre you can observe a huge number of different subgenres and each of them often has its own history. For example, at present, when street art is already recognized as an art movement, there is a point of view that “legalizes” it in the eyes of the general public, pointing out that street artists often give nondescript industrial cities the status of new cultural centers, create new aesthetic spaces that improve the quality of life local population. A striking example of such a transformation can be considered the city Bristol, supposedly the birthplace of Banksy, where now his works are not only preserved, but even tours are organized around them. In addition, many other street artists come to this city and their works are also preserved. From this point of view, the ideological predecessors of street art can be considered the futurists (including Russian ones), who called for painting the walls of houses, “ennobling the eye (taste) of the passerby.”
At the same time, it should be noted that not all representatives of street art were conceptualized based on the idea of beautifying the urban environment. One of the notable manifestations of street art is graffiti. Here (if we talk about the modern period of history, since graffiti in general can be talked about in relation to a variety of eras), the story begins in the 1920s, when drawings and inscriptions began to appear on freight trains traveling across the United States. Later, this direction turned into a way of disseminating political and other ideas, as well as a method of securing territory for various types of groups of people. In the early 70s, the movement became extremely popular, many writers appeared whose goal was to place their tag (their signature) wherever possible. In the face of competition from other writers, there was a desire to make their work more visible, and signatures became more and more complex. Moreover, often, regardless of the author’s original idea, a sign or inscription received additional meaning after it was created. In other words, the more often a person sees a particular image, the more likely it is that he will have a question: what does it mean? People start asking each other, the sign becomes part of the cultural environment, gradually receiving new interpretations.
The development of graffiti was primarily associated with the United States, and more specifically with New York. There, the local metro became the main platform for various kinds of street artists. This was due to the fact that the metro at that time was the most unprotected part of the city, in which there were a lot of people. Those. it was relatively safe to draw something on the subway and the audience for the work was significant. That. this manifestation of street art developed under external pressure from the authorities and this, of course, influenced it. In subsequent years, an active campaign to combat graffiti in the subway began and this led to the fact that many artists began to work on the streets. A little later, the stencil began to gain popularity, because this way the artist can create his drawing faster, which reduces the likelihood of a possible arrest.
It should be noted that the stencil itself is also a separate direction in street art. It is believed that it gained popularity in the wake of graffiti and under the influence of an atmosphere unfavorable for long and painstaking work, but at the same time it would be incorrect to say that the stencil is exclusively a continuation of the tradition of New York graffiti. This method is interesting not only because it allows you to quickly create an image, but also because it allows you to repeat the same pattern many times, and because to directly apply paint over the stencil you do not need to be an outstanding artist, a tag made in this manner spreads faster throughout the conditional territory. Perhaps the first example here can be considered the so-called. "Kilroy Was Here"(English) Kilroy was here). The tag gained enormous popularity in the post-war period in the USA and Europe. The phrase itself belongs to James Kilroy, who inspected shipyards and left such an inscription on the inspected ships. Gradually, the phrase began to be noticed and interpreted. Soldiers began to reproduce it in various cities of Europe, and in the post-war years, a typical image of a man with a long nose peeking out from behind a certain plane and the corresponding inscription “Kilroy was here” began to appear throughout America.
In the 90s of the 20th century, artists began to use stencils, who later became widely famous. Here we can note Shepard Fairey's "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" company, which later transformed into the "Obey" company, during which the author distributed about a million images of Andre the Giant with the appropriate inscription, using various methods, including stenciling. Repeating the same image over and over again affects the viewer's interpretation of that image. In part, here one can find some similarity with the ideas of pop art, but one must understand that if the concept of a simulacrum involves the creation of a copy without an original, a symbol without meaning, then in this case we are talking about a symbol that acquires meaning after, or rather, in the course of repeated copying . However, a number of artists who became famous within the framework of street art, at some point began to work in the genre of pop art, often using images previously invented for the street.
Another direction of street art can be considered various types of installations. Here we can highlight the work of Mark Jenkins, who creates sculptures from film and tape, later placing them in cities around the world. However, street art can include any art work performed within a particular city, which makes this genre virtually limitless in terms of the number of works, artists, ideas, etc.
The emergence of street art, the transformation of its style
Street artists are representatives of graffiti culture, which formed in the West as a subcultural movement and has now reached the status of one of the forms of modern art. However, it should be noted that the majority of Russians still tend to consider street art to a greater extent namely graffiti, vandalism and hooliganism, while street artists in the West have long moved away from such clichés and cliches addressed to them and even gained worldwide fame. Even a person far from contemporary art probably knows the works of the world-famous street artist Banksy. If we talk about the state of Russian street art, there is a common opinion that it is “lagging behind, catching up,” since graffiti culture appeared in our country not so long ago, with the beginning of perestroika - on the wave of penetration of Western mass culture that swept Russia at the end of the 80s -s, early 90s.
Street art, according to most, arose in the 1970s-90s, and its prehistory began back in the Second World War. According to legend, the history of graffiti begins in 1942, during World War II, when worker Kilroy began writing “Kilroy was here” on every box of bombs being produced at a factory in Detroit. Soldiers in Europe reproduce this phrase on walls that survived the bombings. This first manifestation is later joined by Cornbread's signatures in Philadelphia in the 1950s and 1960s. Together with Cool Erl and Top Cat, they create graffiti, giving rise to this movement in a true sense.
From Philadelphia, the movement in the late 1960s came to New York, to the Washington Heights quarter in Manhattan, and it was from there that in the 70s of the 20th century the “tag” spread everywhere, covering the walls of subway cars. Julio 204 was the first to put his street number next to his nickname. The first graffiti artist recognized outside his own neighborhood was Taki 183. He leaves traces of his presence in many urban places, becoming a kind of “arsonist” and provoking a wave of imitations among many graffiti artists.
From New York in the 80s. XX century graffiti, as a special subculture, began to spread throughout the world. This subculture has taken root especially well in poor areas of Latin America, where even earlier their own tradition arose - “mural”, i.e. drawings on houses. By the 90s, artists appeared who largely moved away from graffiti (writing letters, names) and completely switched to creating images or direct messages, and using the most different techniques. Here we cannot fail to mention Blek le Rat, which, having become acquainted with the street art of New York, takes this idea back to its homeland, to Paris. There he departs from the standards of signatures and begins to use a stencil, which over time became one of the main tools of all artists. Blek le Rat becomes a seminal figure in the art of street art, according to himself famous representative street painting by Banksy, it was he who became the father of modern trends.
By the mid-1970s, more mature graffiti appeared on the streets of New York, painted by the first true street artists: Lee Quinones and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Quiñones painted entire subway trains in his native New York and ended up at the first street art exhibition in the history of Washington, DC, in 1981. At the same time, Batiscia is one of the very first recognized street artists, whose works can currently be purchased for $14 million or more.
The case with Batischia became rather extraordinary for the culture of street art, and he himself soon moved further and further away from hooligan painting and joined neo-expressionism. Street art, meanwhile, moved on and became more and more daring and defiant. The turning point was the 1990s, when more and more artists began to abandon “standard” graffiti (which has now almost ceased to be associated with street art) and, already in the 1990s, following stencils, they began to use posters and stickers, video art and even arrange installations. This time became the time of a new generation of artists for street art - Banksy, Shepard Fairey, Ces53, Space Invader, 108, Ash and many others.
Particularly significant for modern culture street art is the mysterious personality of Banksy, who is one of the most influential and sought-after figures in contemporary art. But his identity has not yet been established. All this time he manages to hide his face behind masks and hoods. This English graffiti artist began painting on the streets of his native Bristol back in 1993 and for quite a long time acted as an ordinary graffiti artist as part of his team, but over time, in order to have time to paint and not be caught by the police, he began to use stencil technology, like the French street artist Bleck le Rat, who painted the London Underground in the late 1970s. Banksy gained worldwide fame thanks to his stencil drawings on sensitive socio-political topics and ridicule of popular culture.
According to the artist himself, “Graffiti is one of the few means of self-expression that you can afford, even if you have nothing.”
Two traditions of street art.
There are two traditions in street art, different in origin and character, although generally conventional. They are usually referred to as “French” street art and “Anglo-American”.
In the English-speaking world, street art grew out of poverty, from “bad areas”, working-class suburbs and largely from the black subculture. He gave rise to the street art movement, having a strong influence on Latin America and continental Europe.
“Anglo-American” street art was initially of a protest nature, created mainly by people of proletarian origin. It is still quite sensitive to any fact of cooperation between colleagues and commercial organizations. At the same time, this tradition is not alien to some lightness, irony and frivolity, and vandalism is often seen as pure pleasure from destruction and breaking the rules.
However, although European artists were inspired by New York graffiti, they soon created their own tradition. “French” street art positions itself as “serious art.” Almost all artists have higher education and connect their artistic ideas with philosophical reflections. The idea of French street art is to serve the community and try to fit into the urban landscape without distorting or destroying the environment. It should also be noted that French street art was quickly included in the system of museums and galleries - most of the now famous authors quickly gained access to exhibitions. The latter circumstance forces one to consider a significant part of this tradition not as street art, but as something else (pop art, glam art...). At the same time, modern French street artists speak rather skeptically about other traditions (for example, in the article “The Age of Developed Vandalism” from the Kommersant - Power magazine), the French artist Zevs says: “I respect Banksy, but what he does is... these are, in essence, caricatures").
If we look for the underlying reasons for the differences between the two traditions of street art, then probably the main one is that the Anglo-Saxon tradition of graffiti and street art are firmly rooted and see their basis in the primitive, territorial beginning of man - street art as pure pleasure from the destruction of boundaries, as the ability to “mark” territory, not so much one’s own, but of some group. The French tradition sees its goal as creating additional meanings in a visual message, not destruction.
It is curious that the difference between these two traditions also correlates with the ability of artists to reflect. It is noted that the works of French street artists turn out to be hyper-reflexive; the messages they convey in objects of art are filled with meaning. At the same time, according to the biographies of the authors, it is noticeable that representatives of the Aglo-Saxon tradition are mainly people from the lower social classes, while in the second tradition there is a significant number of professional artists and designers with one or two educations (often artistic plus humanitarian).
After describing the features of European and Anglo-Saxon graffiti art, it is necessary to trace the path of graffiti in Russia and its features.
The process of origin and development of street art in Russia
The formation of Russian street art, like most other varieties of Western culture, has been happening in Russia since the beginning of perestroika. Around 1985, a fashion for Western values and Western culture, including hip-hop and rap becoming popular. Since citizens of the Soviet Union did not have wide access to information about Western cultural phenomena, information had to be collected “bit by bit... from Western magazines, films and musical products brought by the lucky ones.” That is why there has been a persistent stereotype that the hip-hop style consists of three directions: break-dance, rap and graffiti. This cliché is still popular in modern Russian society, although in fact this is not entirely true. After the collapse of the USSR, a wave of hip-hop culture rushed into Russia, rap and hip-hop dance and music schools, numerous festivals began to be held. At the same time, the first rappers and breakers were at the same time the first graffiti artists, decorating in this style the decorations of their concert and rehearsal venues, the interiors of their clubs, premises, etc. Among the first representatives of Russian graffiti in those days were: Rat, Basket and Max-Navigator .
Russian street art is formed along the Western path of development and arises from the graffiti direction; this transition has been actively taking place since 2000. Such names as Code and Fet, Make, Who and others appear in the Russian street art arena. In 2003, the first Russian street art events "Don"t Copy me" and "Access" took place, and, starting this year, Russian street art festivals and street art shows are held in Russia regularly. As a result, Russian street art is moving to a new level, instead of hooligan attacks it turns into new look art. However, most modern street art researchers and even the artists themselves often criticize Russian street art, calling it a faceless imitation of the Western school. But, nevertheless, many note positive dynamics development of Russian street art. What are the reasons for the slow development of original Russian street art? The main reason is the obvious centralization of the Russian school of street art: most teams, individual artists and street art centers are concentrated in Moscow and St. Petersburg. Such geographical crowding negatively affects the development of Russian street art, often leaving provincial street artists unnoticed. Another reason for the dominance of Western templates in Russian street art is the use by most street artists of the Latin alphabet, with inscriptions most often in English. In the entire Russian street art space, there is only one notable street art team using Russian as the main language. This is the interregional “Why” team.
Another reason is the current lack of legitimate status of street art in Russian society. On the one hand, street art itself, as described earlier, is an illegal art form. But, on the other hand, in the USA and in the West there are painting platforms where artists can realize their ideas, train their skills, and there are also gallery-type platforms where street artists can even present their work. There are no such spaces in Russia.
Moreover, there is a huge rejection of graffiti paintings, which is expressed, in particular, in how street art objects are dealt with further. Turning again to Western experience, I note that, despite strict sanctions for painting walls in the wrong places, the police are in no hurry to paint over the drawings made by artists. In the UK, graffiti is even being restored (though again by that same Banksy). In Russia, tags are immediately painted over (see Fig. 4 - painting over graffiti near Ladozhskaya metro station), and, most often, the color of paint used to paint over a piece of wall with the image differs sharply from the original color of the wall, so doubts arise that a wall with monochromatic spots of a different color is of greater value and aesthetics than a wall with a bright image. The title of the article “In the UK, vandals painted over Banksy's graffiti” already demonstrates the difference: in Russia, vandals are called graffiti artists, in the UK, vandal = those who cover up graffiti
Russian street art is also distinguished by the fact that it has an even more acute protest element: many stickers and graffiti express ridicule and indignation towards the ruling class.
And the last feature of Russian street art that I would like to note is that in the process of being included in the street art community, a Russian street artist goes through a certain “evolution”: only when entering a subculture, he is happy to be included in various events, organized “from above”, participates in the creation of mural art, and then, having become acquainted with the negative attitude of his community towards commissioned work, goes into the shadows and prefers radically illegal ways of self-expression.
Thus, in the developing Russian street art there are a number of advantages (such as the protest component, which is valuable for the original essence of street art), but also a number of problems and shortcomings.