A Pretentious Article on Street Art

I'm a music student. Part of that involves writing a lot of words, in a scholarly fashion, on the subject of music. I've been doing that a lot lately, to the point where anything I write will probably sound scholarly even unintentionally, and almost definitely be boring, as at this stage, though I still love music, I’d rather eat hot coals than write another syllable about it. So let's talk about art instead!
Street art, to be precise.

So what is this street art thing? It’s a far cry from graffiti anyway, though it can occasionally look similar. Street art is art in public spaces, where art was never intended to be. Its raisons d’étre are as varied as the artists who produce it, ranging from political satire, provocation, highlighting the coldness of urban society, to mitigating the sterile coldness bringin something unexpected and surprising into the day, and making people consider things differently, pushing them out of their coccoon of routine. The impromptu, unexpected and occassional illegality of most street art is what gives it much of its spontaneous, jolting energy. This subversiveness is probably also what draws most of the oddball geniuses of street art to it as a medium in the first place.
Street art can take place in any public space, and takes many forms. The most common is probably stenciling, using good old-fashioned spraypaint and some cleverly cut cardboard to create something special. (I particularly like this stencil, by American artist Above) Of course, freehand spraypainting is perfectly valid, even if just used to write words- everyone loves public poetry!
An even more intruiging and whimsical form of street art is yarn bombing; this is an ingenious push to make the world a cuddlier and brighter place, reclaiming sterile public areas.

So, here’re some artists to look out for:

Maser
Dublin’s own Maser has been decried as a poor man's Banksy, Maser actually operates in a very different way- whereas Banksy
highlights the grim realities of life, Maser seems to want to topple them, embracing the potential for better things in people, and tries to bring a little light into our lives with his all-pervading "Maser Loves U" campaign of stickers, stencils, and trademark luridly-coloured murals. It’s simple, it’s appealing, and it’s fun to see how many you can spot around town.

Edgar Müller
Edgar Müller’s 3D street art is a wonderful example of serious art being put to silly ends. Classicaly trained, he started out reproducing old masters; he now focuses on realism in his freehand paintings, and specialises in 3D pavement art that only makes sense when viewed from a particular point. He even created a mini Ice age in Dublin during '08's Festival of World Cultures! Check out his site.

John Pugh
In a similar vein to Müller is John Pugh, another 3D specialist favouring architectural marvels breaking out through the walls of buildings. He sees himself more as an artist and less of a social activist than a lot of the others featred in this article, but when you create astounding ultra-realistic illusory art as he does, all you can do is be damn thankful that he is such a fine artist!

Banksy
Banksy is probably the world’s best known anonymous street artist, graduating from simple vandalism to stencils with true artistic merit and satirical political murals. He’s also notorious for his elaborate stunts, like breaking into London Zoo and painting “We’re sick of fish” on the wall of the penguin enclosure. He’s arguably the most political of the artists featured here, and though he’s been widely lauded in mainstream art circles he stays on the fringes, pursuing his ideological art goals.

Posterchild
Posterchild is a leading light in the Toronto street art scene,
creating stencils, installations, and some much more bizzarre other works. He's also a good friend of Dinosaur Comics creator Ryan North, so it's not surprising his imagination is fuelled by late 80s videogames and skeleton astronauts; particularly worth checking out are his controversial Mario blocks and snowball darts. He describes himself thus: "Although subversion is not my primary goal, by its very nature my practice challenges the status quo. Authority over the visual landscapes of our cities has been placed out of reach to the very people who live in them. In my gentle way, I am simply connecting to my surroundings, and in this manner I also reclaim that which has been denied to me... I focus on thought-provoking works that uncomfortably straddle concepts of activism, advertising, graffiti, pranks, and vandalism."

Could this be art's future? A rebirth of art in public spaces, embracing spontaneity? I hope so- with art moving out of museums and galleries, it can become more than food for the soul; it can be a critique on our lives, a commentary, or a definig moment in our way of thinking. Having seen the amazing things these artists and others can do, I sincerely hope this movement is here to stay.

Coming up: a discussion on what I (rather groundlessly) like to call womb music. Shoegaze, drone, noise, and all their happy little friends. stay tuned!