Street Art and the Contested Sensorium of the City: Aesthetics, Visibility, and Urban Power

Resumo

The article argues that street art participates in social struggles over how the city is perceived, used, and represented. Thus, it purports that the political significance of street art depends on the circumstances of its production, its location, the people who encounter it, and the institutions and economic forces that shape its reception. A work may interrupt an established visual order, but its meanings can change when it is removed, circulated online, incorporated into a cultural programme, or used to promote a neighbourhood. These processes do not necessarily cancel one another out. The same artwork may provide a meaningful form of political expression and later  become  part  of  the  image  through  which  a  city  markets  itself  to  tourism.  The  discussion  considers  four  related  dimensions  of  this  problem:  the  urban  organization  of  visibility;  street  art  as  a  tactical  use  of  space;  the  incorporation  of street art into urban development and commercial culture; and its role in social movements. These dimensions are examined as intersecting conditions rather than separate histories to demonstrate more clearly why the politics of street art must inevitably  turn  upon  relationships  between  aesthetic  intervention,  control  over  urban space and the inequalities of urban resource distributions.