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Will the Internet Fundamentally Change the Nature of Street Art?

by Matthew Zuras on May 29, 2010 at 05:00 PM

As street art moves closer and closer to the mainstream, is it possible that the changing conditions of its display will shift the style's very nature? British living legend Banksy has lately come to the U.S., "visiting" cities by stenciling up some of his trademark works, which have been fanatically chronicled and archived by his growing fan base. (Lesser-known artists in New York, at least, did not extend such a warm welcome.) Now, Baltimore street artist Gaia has created a Google Map that pinpoints the locations of all of his works -- including pieces that have been removed or destroyed and the ones still on view. The obsessive chronicling of street art on the Internet, though, raises a number of questions about the fundamental experience of viewing it.

Archiving and conserving street art -- outside that of Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat's -- was never really part of the picture until recently. People are currently lamenting the destruction of Banksy's works in Toronto and elsewhere, while others are absconding with whole sections of walls emblazoned with his work -- and all this in spite of the traditionally temporary nature of street art. Wheat-pastes and stencils aren't meant to persist; they're intended to surprise the viewer, to intervene in the urban landscape, to exist as fleetingly as the posters, ads and bills that populate the facades of the rest of the city. As such, much of the most popular street art (like Banksy's, or that of artist-cum-entrepreneur Shepard Fairey) is also the most commercial in nature; it espouses subversive platitudes through a provocative image that is nothing more than a visual soundbite. It's meant to be consumed, digested, and forgotten quickly.

Gaia's decision to document not only his own works but their precise locations represents an ongoing shift from street art as an ephemeral experience to being part of the YouTube milieu, in which the sands of time are obsolete. Part of the conservation effort for Banksy's works has to do with his fame (and, of course, the rising value of his works), but -- along with Gaia's Google Map -- it also implies that street art in general will no longer be transitory. A record will always exist, and a virtual road map plotting the location of the works will supplant the serendipity of stumbling upon a free, public work of art. [From: PSFK]

Tags: art, ArtConservation, banksy, conservation, google maps, GoogleMaps, graffiti, Shepard Fairey, ShepardFairey, street art, StreetArt, top

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