Urban art combines street art and graffiti and is often used to summarize all visual art forms arising in urban areas, being inspired by urban architecture or present urban lifestyle. Because the urban arts are characterized by existing in the public space, they are often viewed as vandalism and destruction of private property.
Although urban art started at the neighborhood level, where many people of different cultures live together, it is an international art form with an unlimited number of uses nowadays. Many urban artists travel from city to city and have social contacts all over the world. The notion of 'Urban Art' developed from street art which is primarily concerned with graffiti culture. Urban art represents a broader cross-section of artists that, in addition to covering traditional street artists working in formal gallery spaces, also cover artists using more traditional media but with a subject matter that deals with contemporary urban culture and political issues. In Paris, Le Mur is a public museum of urban art.
Though starting as an underground movement, urban artists like Banksy and Adam Neate have now gained mainstream status and have, in turn, propelled the urban art scene into popular culture. Perceptions have started to change as urban movements such as graffiti slowly gain acceptance from the public. A confirmation of street art's new mainstream status can be, in part, confirmed by an invitation from the Tate calling upon artists to create outdoor pieces on the Thames side of the gallery in the summer of 2008. [1]
The band Gorillaz uses an urban art style to promote their band. The band members are animated in a graffiti style.
In Spain, urban art, influenced by graffiti art and urban art from New York, was born first in the peripheral neighborhoods of large cities and in the towns of their metropolitan areas and then spread throughout the rest of the country. Currently Valencia, Madrid, Barcelona, Pontevedra, Zaragoza and Cuenca are important focuses of this discipline. The Aragonese city is a benchmark thanks to its Asalto urban culture festival, 5 which brings together artists from all over the world and performs interventions in the city. It is worth highlighting the rural city of La Bañeza, which has become the European city with the most works per square meter built.
Graffiti is writing or drawings made on a wall or other surface, usually without permission and within public view. Graffiti ranges from simple written "monikers" to elaborate wall paintings, and has existed since ancient times, with examples dating back to ancient Egypt, ancient Greece, and the Roman Empire.
Sticker art is a form of street art in which an image or message is publicly displayed using stickers. These stickers may promote a political agenda, comment on a policy or issue, or comprise a subcategory of graffiti.
Frank Shepard Fairey is an American contemporary artist, activist and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. In 1989, he designed the "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (...OBEY...) sticker campaign while attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD).
Andre the Giant Has a Posse is a street art campaign based on a design by Shepard Fairey created in 1989 while Shepard attended the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence, Rhode Island. Distributed by the skater community and graffiti artists, the stickers featuring an image of André the Giant began showing up in many cities across the United States. At the time, Fairey declared the campaign to be "an experiment in phenomenology". Over time, the artwork has been reused in a number of ways and has become worldwide. Fairey also altered the work stylistically and semantically into OBEY Giant.
Rash, written RASH, is a 2005 Australian documentary film, directed by Nicholas Hansen. Its subject is contemporary urban Australia and the artists who are making it a host for illegal street art. With the tagline 'Scratch it and it spreads', Rash explores the cultural value of unsanctioned public art and the ways that street art and graffiti contribute to public dialogue.
Street art is visual art created in public locations for public visibility. It has been associated with the terms "independent art", "post-graffiti", "neo-graffiti" and guerrilla art.
Stencil graffiti is a form of graffiti that makes use of stencils made out of paper, cardboard, or other media to create an image or text that is easily reproducible. The desired design is cut out of the selected medium and then the image is transferred to a surface through the use of spray paint or roll-on paint.
Street poster art is a kind of graffiti, more specifically categorized as "street art". Posters are usually handmade or printed graphics on thin paper. It can be understood as an art piece that is installed on the streets as opposed to in a gallery or museum, but by some it is not comprehended as a form of contemporary art.
Martha Cooper is an American photojournalist. She worked as a staff photographer for the New York Post during the 1970s. She is best known for documenting the New York City graffiti scene of the 1970s and 1980s.
Tavar Zawacki formerly known as 'ABOVE' is an American abstract artist living and working between Berlin, Germany and Lisbon, Portugal. For twenty years (1996–2016) Tavar Zawacki created and signed all of his artworks with his street artist pseudonym, 'ABOVE'. Tavar was born and raised in California until the age of 19, at which time, Zawacki bought a one-way flight from California to Paris, France, bringing with him a backpack full of art supplies, all the money in his bank account (US$1,500), and a 'rise above your fears' approach to starting his art career. Starting in Paris in 2000, Tavar transitioned from painting traditional letter style graffiti of A-B-O-V-E, to his 'Above arrow' icon that represented his optimistic mentality to 'rise above fears, challenges, and anything holding you back from your goals.' During a 20-year period, the artworks of ABOVE could be seen in over 80 cities spanning 35 countries around the world.
Dean Stockton, better known by his alias D*Face, is an English multimedia street artist who uses spray paint, stickers, posters, and stencils.
Melbourne, the capital of Victoria and the second largest city in Australia, has gained international acclaim for its diverse range of street art and associated subcultures. Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, much of the city's disaffected youth were influenced by the graffiti of New York City, which subsequently became popular in Melbourne's inner suburbs, and along suburban railway and tram lines.
Blek le Rat is a French graffiti artist. He was one of the first graffiti artists in Paris, and has been described as the "Father of stencil graffiti".
SJK 171, a.k.a.Steve the Greek is a New York City graffiti artist who was active during the late 1960s and 1970s. A native of Washington Heights, he was a founding member of United Graffiti Artists, one of the first professional graffiti collectives.
The Barack Obama "Hope" poster is an image of US president Barack Obama designed by American artist Shepard Fairey. The image was widely described as iconic and came to represent Obama's 2008 presidential campaign. It is a stylized stencil portrait of Obama in solid red, beige and blue, with the word "progress", "hope", or "change" below.
Dan Witz is a Brooklyn, NY based street artist and realist painter. He grew up in Chicago, IL, and graduated in 1981 from Cooper Union, on New York City's Lower East Side. Witz, consistently active since the late 1970s, is one of the pioneers of the street art movement.
A1one is the pseudonym of Karan Reshad, an Iranian visual artist who pioneered graffiti and street art in Iran. His career as a street artist began in his hometown Tehran.
MadC is a graffiti writer and muralist. She was born in Bautzen, Germany, and is most known for her large-scale, outdoor artistic paintings.
Roger Gastman is an American art dealer, curator, filmmaker, and publisher who focuses on graffiti and street art.