Great article on street art in the fine art magazine ARTnews. Thanks to Andrew from Ad Hoc Art for the tip.
It’s a well written and informative article that is definitely work a read. Here’s a short excerpt:
Fairey is part of a wave of street artists gaining acceptance in mainstream museums. Last summer London’s Tate Modern presented six towering murals on an exterior wall, created by a global lineup of street artists. Among those featured was Faile—the New York City duo known for graphic mash-ups of pulp fiction imagery—as well as Blu, an Italian artist whose monumental black-and-white doodles have long been materializing on abandoned buildings all over Europe, and the Brazilian brothers known as Os Gemeos. The Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh has included a sprawling, kaleidoscopic hallway piece by installation artist and celebrated graffitist Barry McGee in its 55th Carnegie International, on view through January 11. McGee has done other museum projects, including covering the facade of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Detroit—at the museum’s request—with a bubbly, 110-foot graffiti tag that reads “Amaze.” Last year the New York–based Espo (a.k.a. Steve Powers) was the subject of a solo show at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia. And figurative prints by Swoon, another New York artist, are part of the permanent collections of the Museum of Modern Art and the Brooklyn Museum. It’s a surprising turn for an urban art form that until now has received minimal attention from the fine art world—and one that can land its practititioners in jail for anything from vandalism to breaking and entering.