In this post, I want to tell you about street art, how I went from being something related to thugs and lazy people to being one of the arts most accepted by people, and the reason is that it is an art within the reach of anyone, you don't have to enter a museum or gallery to enjoy it. It has also gone viral thanks to the thousands of photos and videos that people share on social networks. Today Bansky can paint a wall in London and in less than an hour thousands of people have already seen it. The origin of this type of art goes back to the caves, to those famous cave paintings that someone taught us in primary school that you no longer even remember other artists such as Picasso and Pollock, used them for inspiration as these paintings remained engraved in their mind.
The artists who dedicate themselves to street art usually have nothing to lose and that is why their works can become very sincere, criticizing institutions, raising awareness among viewers, opening debates on topics with which they do not agree. agreement. A perfect example is what the French artist Jean René, better known as JR did in 2008. JR painted various facades of buildings in a favela neighborhood in Rio de Janeiro. He does these murals in response to a series of murders that happened in that area. JR is an artist whose art reflects the problems of the place where she is, her art is based on social and political criticism which is very common among graffiti artists. Mural images It would not have had the same impact if those murals had been exhibited in a museum, with perfect white walls the message would have been read totally differently.
Shepard Fairey is an American artist, surely many do not locate him by name but if they know his art, he started creating stickers for his skateboarder friends while studying art. Soon the OBEY logo became very popular within street art and copies began to emerge around the world. In 2001 Fairey founded a clothing company called OBEY as an extension of his work, which has been quite successful. In the 2008 Presidential Election in the United States, Fairey designed a poster supporting the Democratic candidate, Barack Obama, Fairey, and his assistants printed thousands of copies and pasted them everywhere. Obama saw the poster and used it as the official image of his campaign making the image one of the most famous around the world. Obama Hope poster
Now let's talk about the mysterious artist and activist from Britain, known as Banksy. Although we know that this is not the true name of the artist, many of us want to know who he really is. Bansky has become an artist with international fame and who has caused a stir in recent years. In the early 1990s, Bansky started graffiti on the walls of his hometown of Bristol. In the early 2000s, Bansky began painting in various cities and soon became one of the most recognized artists worldwide. At the beginning of his days as a graffiti artist Bansky was influenced by a French graffiti artist named Blek le Rat, and part of what influenced him was to see how this artist used stencils. Bansky adopted this method since it allows you to make detailed art in a faster way since when you do street art you don't want to take too long to have fewer chances of the police or someone seeing you.
The messages behind his art are very controversial since they are loaded with political messages, I think that for this reason after a short time that people know about their art they send people to paint the wall again to erase their art, on the other hand, there are companies that have decided to leave their art on the wall of the building since it attracts thousands of people a day and then there are others who try to rip the art off so that they can then sell it. The problem with people who want to sell Bansky's art trying to remove it from the wall or taking the wall away if possible is that we get into this discussion of who really owns the art, will the owner of the building be where their wall is? the art? Does it still belong to the artist? Or if it should simply be left for the general public to enjoy? Bansky's art is valued at millions of euros and that is why many want to take advantage and earn money with his art. Bansky is the most famous artist who has hidden his identity since he started making street art. He uses a third party to deliver the certificate of authenticity for his works through a company called Pest Control, the company's name is ironic since he paints rats frequently.
I hope you enjoyed the post and if you are interested to learn more check out the documentary that I left below under my sources.
Sources
What are you looking at? 150 years of art by Will Gompertz - book