Street art is an art form that entails creating public works incorporating the street physically and in their meaning. That physical property is employed as an artistic resource in street art raises two questions. Are street artworks necessarily illegal? Does being illegal change the nature of production and aesthetic appreciation? First, I argue street artworks must be in the street. On my view, both the physical and sociocultural senses of the street can be constitutive of meaning. Second, I argue that illegality is a prototypical and paradigmatic feature of street art. While illegality alone does not make works better than sanctioned street art, it affects the production process and changes what is available to appreciate.
Most individuals recognize the illegality of altering public or private property without permission, even under the pretense of “art.” Yet, street art is an art form that entails creating public works incorporating the street physically and in their meaning (Riggle ). Within the form there are various genres: graffiti, stencils, posters, sculpture, yarn bombing, and so on. Within these genres, various media and materials are used, including spray paint, wheat paste, and paper, along with physical aspects of the street, such as pavements, lampposts, and signs. That physical property is employed as an artistic resource in street art raises two questions. Are street artworks necessarily illegal? Does being illegal change the nature of production and aesthetic appreciation? Whether street art is essentially illegal or illicit is a question arising from the tension between its historical emergence from graffiti and its subsequent rise in popularity. Much about the materials, style, and culture of street art arise from the illegality condition. Yet, sometimes private owners and cities grant artists permission to make street art, raising concerns of authenticity. Sanctioned street art also borrows and appropriates the illicit nature of illegal street art. Consequently, a treatment of street art's essence with regard to illegality is needed.
While I largely agree with Nicholas Riggle's definition of street art, I differ on two key points. First, I argue street artworks must be in the street, while he is inconsistent on this requirement. On my view, both the physical and sociocultural senses of the street can be constitutive of meaning, whereas he excludes the former. Secondly, while he thinks street artworks are typically illegal, he does not connect illegality to intentionality, ephemerality, and anonymity, nor does he consider how it alters production and appreciation. I argue that illegality is a prototypical and paradigmatic feature of street art. Although much street art is illegal, some is sanctioned. While illegality alone does not make works better than sanctioned street art, it affects the production process and changes what is available to appreciate.
I. ILLEGALITY'S HISTORICAL IMPORTANCE
Illegality has been integral to street art's historical development. While graffiti dates back to the caves of Lascaux or Pompeii, street art is rooted in a contemporary history that began in New York's graffiti scene in the late 1970s (McCormick ; Young ). Graffiti was outsider art or art brut, because it was not produced or accepted by the mainstream artworld but by those with limited social and economic resources living in blighted areas of the city (Cardinal ). With minimal social capital, individuals used street features as sites of artistic creation. Writers tagged doors, walls, and subway trains to publicly create works cheaply and with an independent material and sociocultural infrastructure. Initially then, the illegality condition was met out of social necessity rather than deference to political principle. But political cachet became a goal intended by artists over time, and many, such as Swoon, realized that illegality provided a distinctive political dimension to works (Young , 29).
That street art is paradigmatically illegal makes it antithetical to the mainstream artworld, but it is so for a variety of reasons. It occurs in alternative public places—the street, not museums and galleries. Without centralized locations, works are diffuse, gaining materiality and meaning from street sites. While most art is not free to view, street art is. Works can be seen as gifts from artists to publics, although they will not be seen by all this way. Whereas traditional artworks are preserved, street art is typically ephemeral. Consequently, street art has a perennial underground quality, even as its street presence makes it broadly available to the public.
The illegality condition shapes the production and materiality of artworks. Artists often use spray paint for its transportability, inconspicuousness, and expediency. It is easily carried and concealed and enables speedy application. Yet, even spray paint can be too time consuming. Banksy notes that illegality led him to develop the use of stencils to increase efficiency. “As I lay there listening to the cops on the tracks, I realized I had to cut my painting time in half or give up altogether. I was staring straight up at the stenciled plate on the bottom of the [train's] fuel tank when I realized I could just copy that style and make each letter three feet high” (Banksy , 13). Considerations such as these allow spectators to appreciate illegality's temporal, social, and artistic constraints and their effects on street artists, processes, and works. No matter how challenging it is to create public art using the street, it is more difficult and distinctive when illegal. Yet, street artists often aim for risk, danger, and audacity gained from illegality in the materiality and meanings of artworks. Accordingly, both physical and social aspects comprise the notion of “street” in street art.
II. DEFINING STREET ART MATERIALLY AND SOCIOCULTURALLY
Riggle argues that street art must meet two ontological requirements: materiality and immateriality (Riggle , 245). The materiality requirement entails that works employ the street as an artistic resource in the artwork. There are two senses of artistic resource. The first captures the physical materials of the street in the work such as walls, lampposts, and doorways. The second captures the context of the public street as it frames and constitutes artworks. As a necessary condition, at least one of these senses must be met for works to be street art.
The materiality requirement implies another necessary condition and two commitments. The condition is that the artist's use of the street must be intentional: the artist must intend to use the street. The first commitment is to ephemerality: the artist accepts that works may be short‐lived if they are removed, destroyed, painted over, or appropriated into another's work. The second commitment is to anonymity. Paradigmatically, street artists work under pseudonyms.
Secondly, there is the immateriality requirement. It requires that the use of the street must be integral to the meaning of the work. Whatever meaning the artwork has, the street is essential to it. The street is constitutive of a work's external material along with its internal meaning. Riggle has clarified the notion of “the street” as both logistical or spatial and sociocultural. Its central logistical function is to facilitate physical travel. Its central sociocultural function is to facilitate creative self‐expression (Riggle , 1).
Riggle argues that being in the street is neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition (Riggle , 244). On his view, the materiality requirement somehow does not necessitate that street artworks have to be outside, public, or physically in and of the street. On my view, being physically in and of the street is a necessary condition. This is to be in public space and of the physical and sociocultural street: walls, alleys, and street signs in sites, neighborhoods, and cities. Works must be in the street because that is where the physical artistic resource is (materiality requirement) and it is an essential way of how the street contributes to a work's meaning (immateriality requirement).
Riggle gives two examples of works not in the street but that he contends are street art. The first is by Blu. Blu spray‐painted various images on walls and sidewalks, photographed and edited them into an animation video posted online called Muto (2008). Riggle's second example is by Invader. After placing several of his famous small mosaics in various cities, Invader creates maps detailing the locations of works and compiles them into books sold online. Although these pieces have a necessary relationship to street art, they should be seen as meta‐street artworks: part of street art culture insofar as they are made by street artists, have the street as their subject, and play a vital role in documenting street art given its ephemerality. However, they are not street artworks per se. First, while books and videos may incorporate physical elements of the street, they are not themselves materially in the street, nor are they displayed in alternative spaces generally. Because they are not materially in the street, there is no commitment to ephemerality, which Riggle requires. Digital presentation of works avoids subjection to the various threats of the street, including being removed by the city or altered by other artists. So, when one sees a picture of street art online or a book of photographs documenting street art, one is not looking directly at street artworks. Secondly, not requiring works to be materially in the street suggests a reductio ad absurdum: any work that at some point materially and immaterially uses the street, such as Caillebotte's Paris Street; Rainy Day or Scorsese's Mean Streets, would count as street art.
Riggle discusses another key distinction: general and specific uses of the street. “A general use of the street is a use of a public surface for its publicity. A specific use of the street is a use of the specific features of a public space. Specific uses of the street are either specific uses of a type of street space (for example, a doorway or a brick wall) or specific uses of a token space (this particular brick wall)” (Riggle , 252). To highlight the varieties of street artworks, I underscore that there are general uses of the street in both the physical and the sociocultural senses, such as the use of any material street feature or any city. There are also specific uses of the street in either sense regarding type, such as in the use of a doorway specifically or a particular city for its cultural status. Further, there are specific uses of the street in both senses regarding token, as in the use of this specific doorway or this specific neighborhood for its cultural status. When a work uses a specific token of the street materially, the physical sense of street is integral to its meaning, even as the sociocultural sense is too.
Understanding this point is key because Riggle minimizes the importance of materiality in being constitutive of meaning. “When I say that street art is art whose use of the street is essential to its meaning, I have in mind the socio‐cultural sense of the street. … [S]treet art is art that uses the street as such, that is, as a cultural space that facilitates self‐expression” (Riggle , 2). In heavily emphasizing the sociocultural sense of the street, its materiality is marginalized. While the sociocultural sense is the emphasis in some street artworks, others are emphasized and brought into specific token form precisely from the material use of the street, such as Charging Bull by Olek or Bush by Banksy (and in yarn bombing and green street art generally). In these specific token cases, both senses are constitutive of a work's materiality and meaning, but particularly physical street features. The physical street must be included to retain street art's distinctive form and to prevent it from collapsing into public art or mainstream art. Public art includes work that may be in the street, but lacks the immateriality requirement and the ephemerality commitment. Mainstream art includes works with prominent street art styles presented in museums or galleries. Illegality precludes street artworks from being merely public or mainstream, although sanctioned work is not mainstream and not public art when it meets street art's requirements.
III. ILLEGALITY AND ILLICITNESS ARE THE HISTORICAL NORM
The inclination to keep street art conceptually distinct from public or mainstream art might lead one to think that illegality is a necessary condition of all street art. Yet, as Alison Young notes, positing illegality as a necessary condition is problematic because works seen as paradigmatic are sometimes legal (Young , 4). Nevertheless, she too emphasizes illegality as a prominent feature of street art generally. She calls it situational art (Young , 8). This phrase captures a public and street encounter between spectator and work situated on a spectrum between illegality and legality. It designates works that trespass upon physical property and transgress conventional laws (illegality) and customs (illicitness). This means that illegality is both a legal and social status. Illegality's social status consists in cultural notions of audacity, trespass, the outlaw, and the art criminal—giving illegal works a higher cultural status and claim to authenticity for some.
The legal sense consists in physically using the street without permission. Illegality entails laws that expressly forbid street art. This can be a violation of civic or criminal law, or both, and may carry penalties of incarceration, fines, or community service. Street art is illegal under anti‐graffiti laws. Consider those of the state of Georgia:
[T]he term “graffiti” means any inscriptions, words, figures, paintings, or other defacements that are written, marked, etched, scratched, sprayed, drawn, painted, or engraved on or otherwise affixed to any surface of real property or improvements thereon without prior authorization of the owner or occupant of the property by means of any aerosol paint container, broad‐tipped marker, gum label, paint stick, graffiti stick, etching equipment, brush, or other device capable of scarring or leaving a visible mark on any surface. (Justia )
Atlanta views graffiti and unauthorized street art not as art at all, but defacement.
How is it determined whether drawing on a building is art or graffiti? Graffiti is the defacing of a building or structure by placing an inscription, a slogan, a drawing, etc., or any modification without prior permission of the owner or the occupant of the property. (Atlanta )
Cities have also criminalized actions associated with street art. Chicago has prohibited the sale of spray paint since 1992 and is seeking to more than double fines against graffiti (Byrne ). New York prohibits carrying spray paint with the intent of defacing and selling spray paint or a “broad tipped indelible marker” to minors. Both new and seasoned street artists have faced a number of arrests and criminal charges (“The 50 Biggest Street Art Arrests” ). Artists might even face arrest in cases where no actual property was “defaced” but was merely perceived to be (Vartanian ).
Even in places where street art is illegal, it can be a matter of degree. While street art may be de jure illegal, it can be de facto permitted. Because some neighborhoods value street art, denizens do not report when artists create works or request their removal (for example: 5Pointz in New York or Cabbagetown in Atlanta). This illustrates one way street art can be low risk. Conversely, it can be high risk beyond mere illegality. If an artist creates a work on a public statue for example, penalties may be more severe. So, there are two senses of risk. One concerns exposure: how likely it is that one will get caught. The other concerns the range of penalties one faces after getting caught, depending on the site.
Illicitness is likewise a paradigmatic feature of street art and is also a spectrum. Illegal works traverse laws, while illicit works traverse dominant customs or traditions (Young , 4). Works can be illegal without being illicit, vice versa, both, or neither (although if the latter, likely not good). Illicitness concerns the domain of values, customs, and traditions, not merely the domain of laws, although the two overlap. The realm of values differs from that of laws because laws against street art are generally consistent within a city or state, even as the risk of exposure and penalty differs according to the site. Conversely, values and intentions may be more diffuse and variant; they may differ depending on the artist, site, neighborhood, or city. Downtown and city‐central sites such as business districts may reflect dominant cultural values. Because these areas are central and reflect the city's economy and reputation, risk is generally higher. But these sites can be exactly where artists want to create works in order to subvert dominant culture.
By contrast, in neighborhoods where street art is accepted and de facto legal, dominant cultural values may not be represented. Works in such places may be illicit or subversive in depiction or representation but may be less so in overall meaning given the surrounding environment. This is because the meaning of street artworks is gained from the physical features of the street, nonstreet materials, and the street's sociocultural context. If an area is already representative of underground values, then works placed there that are illicit to mainstream values might have less audacity or cultural boldness. Areas popularly known for street art may come to be seen as being obvious, exhausted, or “played out.” Illegality and illicitness are indexed to local sites and cultural values, but they may also be seen in response to global counterparts.
Illegal works are at least prima facie illicit. Because obeying laws is a dominant cultural convention, then any illegal artwork is illicit in transgressing a law. But works may also be illicit in a specific sense. A work may be placed in a specific physical or sociocultural location and sometimes at a specific historical moment. Consider Banksy's Monopoly sculpture, which was placed outside of London's St. Paul's Cathedral during the 2011 Occupy protests. This piece gained meaning from the geosocial location of where it was placed—city‐central London—and from the cultural moment of when it was placed—during global protests of the excesses and inequities of capitalism. It is illicit to that specific site as a geographical and sociocultural location.
Illegality's spectrum reveals trade‐offs for artistic autonomy and creative control. Permission affords artists latitude of autonomy extending from the security of sanction, free from risk (Young , 133). Sanction relinquishes the constraint of illegality, which allows artists like Os Gemeos in São Paulo—where street art is decriminalized and typically de facto legal and a prominent cultural value—to create large intricate pieces, options not likely afforded when illegal because of their time‐consuming nature. But sanction is also a type of constraint. In areas where street art is illegal, attaining sanction is often a lengthy and complicated process that can alter, suspend, or prevent the creation of a work. Moreover, sanction may constrain creative expression. In Atlanta, public artworks even on private property must endure a process of approval from three city departments before permission is granted.1 This constrains artistic autonomy and can prevent works from being illicit, not just illegal.
Alternatively, illegality affords latitude of autonomy insofar as artists choose whichever sites they prefer. The idea of not waiting for permission, but just going for it, is underpinned by a social subversiveness and “guerilla art” spirit. At the least, because it is open defiance of restrictions on public expression, the form of illegal street art is socially subversive. It is additionally subversive in being illicit and culturally audacious in content. Moreover, illegality allows works to be spontaneous, rather than premeditated. Some scholars posit spontaneity as constitutive of street art's subversive power (Irvine ; Baldini ). In contexts where street art is de jure illegal, then spontaneously created works imply illegality. Works cannot be both explicitly sanctioned and spontaneous, for sanction implies preapproval. So, the spectrum of illegality provides trade‐offs in both producing and appreciating artworks.
These considerations suggest that illegality is the historical and artistic norm of street art—it is the paradigmatic form of making street artworks. While Riggle says illegality is typical, I say it is prototypical. Illegality and illicitness are generally co‐constitutive because if a work is illegal it is also illicit insofar as it breaks the dominant social convention of following prevailing laws and customs. Much of its illicitness is activated by its illegality, and each has informed the other in street art's development. If a work is illicit and illegal, then it gains some of the former through the latter. If a work is illicit but not illegal, then it is so in content rather than form. Illegality is prototypical and paradigmatic because it is the standard against which all other street art is judged. The history of illegal street art frames even how sanctioned work is perceived. Because sanctioned street art involves the active or positive conditions of asking for or receiving permission, then illegality is the default norm.
Because illegality is the artistic norm, there is a social awareness of it as an original condition of the street art form. It provides a metric for authenticity and reflects a sense of cultural genuineness connected to street art's origin. Authenticity appeals to an original style of production and to an underground tradition. To be sure, illegality is the sine qua non original street art form evincing an art brut nature and an art criminal status. Consequently, illegality and illicitness are seen not merely as features of the production process but as cultural capital within the street art world. Cultural capital in this context is anything that adds aesthetic power to a work and changes what it means or how it is perceived or valued (Bourdieu ). “An implicit hierarchy within street art culture tends to give greater significance or credibility to works created without permission, and artists who … have never or rarely put up illicit work can sometimes be regarded as less authentic, or as attempting to benefit from street art's fashionability (Young , 4). It is the social awareness of illegality as cultural capital that sanctioned street art seeks to tap into, borrow, and appropriate. As other scholars have noted, sanctioned street art counts on being seen on a historical continuum that originated and has been predominantly shaped by illegality (Willard , 120). Seeing sanctioned street art associated with illegality suggests that some of the illicit cultural capital carries over to the sanctioned form merely because art is in the streets. Sanctioned street art capitalizes on the historical association, with varying degrees of success.
When artists making sanctioned work also make illegal street art, there tends to be a social and artistic continuity between their illegal and sanctioned work, allowing the association with illegality to be apropos and authentic. This is largely because artists making illegal street art are informed by distinctive social, artistic, and aesthetic values, attitudes, and intentions. When artists making sanctioned street art or mainstream art with a borrowed street art style do not also make illegal street art, then the association with illegality is often alienated and inauthentic. It suggests that it is borrowed in a culturally inauthentic way by appearing more illicit than it actually is. This was the case of Mr. Brainwash in Exit Through The Gift Shop (2010), which ends with an uncomfortable feeling of alienated and inauthentic cultural appropriation, even by someone who was part of the street art world. The concern of authenticity is that sanctioned work counts on the association of illegality to create or augment illicit meaning into works. It stands on the artistic shoulders of artists who assumed risk, danger, and audacity to forge a new art movement.
IV. ILLEGALITY ACCOUNTS FOR INTENTIONALITY, EPHEMERALITY, AND ANONYMITY
While intention is necessary for authorship generally, the nature of intentionality is made distinctive by the illegality condition. This is because artists are committed to breaking a law in addition to creating an artwork. Artists consider how this constraint affects the location and style of production and the degrees of risk and danger to which they expose themselves. This commitment also has a distinctive illicit and political character in addition to whatever such character the content of the work may have.
Historically, ephemerality arose from illegality because street artworks were removed or painted over by private property owners or cities. This raises the question of whether artists making sanctioned work are still committed to ephemerality. Does illegality precede ephemerality? Riggle argues that artists can be committed to ephemerality even in tacitly or explicitly sanctioned works because they know that sites are not protected in the same way that artworks in enclosed spaces are. He argues that “the street” decides how long works will last. But what accounts for the commitment to ephemerality if not illegality?
Riggle argues that the ephemerality commitment means that artists subject works to various threats of the street and have no claim on them. Works “might be stolen, defaced, destroyed, moved, altered, or appropriated” (Riggle , 245). In cases where the city removes or destroys a work, it is because the artist illegally created it. Each of the other possibilities would result from other artists or passersby altering a work illegally. This suggests two sides of illegality regarding ephemerality. One side is that an artist commits an illegal act and consequently has no claim over the work. The other side concerns the artist's anticipation of other artists or passersby who would alter or destroy a work. Artists might spray paint to alter, destroy, or augment another's work or might poster over another's piece. In these unsanctioned scenarios, others do not have any right to make alterations—they too do so illegally. The commitment to ephemerality can arise from either or both sides of illegality.
If an artist receives permission but is still committed to ephemerality because of the public and unprotected nature of the site, then it is the anticipated threat of other artists or defacers illegally altering or destroying the work that explains the commitment. Unless it is the artist or owner, the person who alters or destroys another's sanctioned work does so illegally. It is doubtful that artists anticipate property owners or cities allowing others to augment, deface, appropriate, or create a new work on an existing sanctioned piece. Even if that were the case, then ephemerality would be no more distinctive than when a museum assigns time limits on a site‐specific work. Eventually, the work is taken down, and whether it is transferable to other sites depends on one's criterion for site specificity (Kwon ). In cases where the work is nontransferable because to do so would destroy it, then it is ephemeral. Although it is not ephemeral because the street decides it is, but because the property owner decides.2
Conversely, illegality does not necessarily precede anonymity, though it too accounts for its historical rise and remains its leading explanation. Individual and crew names have been an integral part of graffiti and street art culture, and most artists use a pseudonym even if spectators come to know their actual names. Works that are tacitly or explicitly sanctioned can still be anonymous. Artists may choose to withhold their identity as a way to maintain focus on the work or to amplify the relationship between spectator and artwork. Yet, even in sanctioned works, illegality may still be a causal factor. Because artists’ styles can be enough for authorities to connect sanctioned works to past or future illegal ones, artists may still prefer pseudonyms.
Different senses of anonymity exist on a spectrum with different effects on appreciation. A work is strictly anonymous when no identifying name or indicator is left. A work may be anonymous when a pseudonym is left, but an artist's actual name remains unknown or is not widely familiar. A work may be anonymous when no name is left, but an artist takes credit in other ways, for example, online. These three alternatives underscore anonymity's import on the experience of the work itself, unencumbered by concerns of the artist's identity. A work may also be anonymous when a pseudonym is left, the artist's actual name remains unknown, but the pseudonym is widely familiar, as is the case for Banksy. If one sees a work of his, appreciation will likely be directed by the thought, “This is a Banksy,” raising considerations of his reputation or repertoire. A work may also be anonymous when no name is left, but there are style indicators, for example, Swoon's use of lines and textures and depictions of strong female figures. In these cases, whether a work is viewed as anonymous will depend on the fame of the artist and the knowledge of the spectator. It is relational: if one recognizes the artist's style, one can contextualize accordingly. A work has minimal anonymity when a pseudonym is left and the artist's name is widely known. For example, Obey is known to be Shepard Fairey. A work has no anonymity when the artist's actual name is left.
These considerations suggest two points. First, anonymity does not always eschew or minimize fame and identity, but rather it depends on the artist and the knowledge of the spectator. Second, there are trade‐offs between knowing who created an artwork and it being anonymous. Knowing the artist allows one to see it in relation to a body of work, genre, and historical context, enabling a more textured, informed, and accurate interpretation. Conversely, anonymity can free the spectator to formally focus on the work and aesthetic encounter.
V. ILLEGALITY ENABLES DISTINCTIVE FEATURES: RISK, DANGER, AND AUDACITY
Risk is specific to illegality. If artworks are illegal and carry penalties of community service, fines, and imprisonment, then all street artworks carry a distinctive risk that sanctioned art does not. There are greater and lesser degrees of risk beyond mere illegality. Risk may depend on the artwork. Works that are large, intricate, and time‐consuming can increase risk of exposure. In high‐profile areas such as city centers, there is an increased chance of arrest, while in secluded locations that are de facto legal, risk is lower. Some works or genres are inherently low risk. Yarn bombers generally receive more tempered reactions by police than artists using spray paint or posters (Wollan ). This is because yarn is seen as less offensive, although its affixation to the street qualifies it as graffiti, and it can be just as illicit as other genres. One reason for this is that yarn is more easily removed than spray paint. Some street sculptures are likewise easily removable (for example, Mark Jenkins's inflatables), while others such as REVS welded work can be more difficult to remove. Recognizing the levels of risk street artists accept highlights why there are relatively few of them. While many artists live to create art, not so many are willing to be imprisoned for it.
Danger concerns the daring and perilous measures artists take in the production process. These include scaling walls, climbing rooftops and billboards, and dodging authorities. Like high‐risk places, dangerous sites can have more social and artistic cachet. This danger does not apply to sanctioned art. Commissioned artists need not break into areas or take dangerous measures to access sites. If they do, they can conspicuously rely on ladders, cranes, lifts, and so on for assistance. When one sees a work high on a wall and deduces that the artist used surrounding features to climb thirty feet, one may appreciate the required skills and effort. “People look at an oil paining and admire the use of brushstrokes to convey meaning. People look at a graffiti painting and admire the use of a drainpipe to gain access” (Banksy , 237).
Audacity captures the cultural boldness of street artists and artworks. Audacity arises from uses of the street's sociocultural context, such as placing a work critical of mainstream values in an area representative of them. Typically, audacity occurs in works that are particularly high risk, although they may or may not be dangerous. While authenticity concerns cultural genuineness, audacity concerns cultural boldness which arises from transgressing laws (illegality), dominant cultural values (illicitness), and being in central sites (exposure). Both authenticity and audacity are sociocultural aspects, and because their meanings differ depending on neighborhood, city, and region, they are subject to variation. While audacity typically involves illicitness, it is distinct because a work can be illicit, but not audacious, such as a poster critical of dominant values, but placed in a popular area surrounded by other street artworks. It may not be culturally bold in the immaterial or material use of the street. Audacity can occur between artists, as when one artist paints over or appropriates another's piece. In premeditated works, audacity may require surreptitious planning and critical forethought. Sites are often scouted beforehand to gauge possibilities—physical features, surrounding sociocultural context, and even escape routes. Some artists pose as construction workers to ensconce themselves in the urban background. Others wait until dark, turning street sites into artworks like acts of overnight magic. Such measures reflect a distinctive performative aspect of street art enabled by the illegality condition and emphasize why a work should be appreciated as a process rather than merely a product.
Works can be risky, but not dangerous or audacious just in virtue of being illegal. Works can be risky and dangerous, but not audacious, but creating an image in the material or immaterial use—it may use only the street generally, both materially and immaterially. A work can be risky, dangerous, and audacious when it does get augmented illicit meaning from material and sociocultural conditions, such as the Billboard Liberation Front's Kant (1989) billboard. (See Figure 1.) A work can be minimally risky, not dangerous, but still audacious, as in the yarn bombing of HOTTEA. Audacity is therefore cultural boldness standing in relation to subversiveness and illicitness, while not reducible to either.
Billboard Liberation Front's Kant (1989) Bay Area, California. Creative Directors: Igor Pflicht and Jack Napier. Street team: Mabel Longhetti, Winslow Leech, Irving Glikk, and Chad Mulligan. Photograph reproduced by courtesy of Unknown Photographer. Used under Creative Commons. https://www.flickr.com/photos/24301298@N08/2298550243/
VI. ILLEGALITY, EPISTEMIC TRANSPARENCY, AND MEANING
Two concerns are whether illegality is epistemically transparent and whether transparency is necessary to appreciate works under illegality's terms. When artists create works in high‐risk or dangerous places, these features can be detectable. By examining a work's location and context, spectators can observe how conspicuous, city‐central, and eye‐catching it is and can appreciate virtually any perceivable or detectable aspect that would increase the work's risk, danger, or audacity as nonaesthetic features and possibly as aesthetic features. When illegality is epistemically transparent or when there is a reasonable presumption of illegality then works can be appreciated under these terms.
When illegality is not epistemically transparent, there are three possibilities of judgment: one may presume illegality, presume sanction, or suspend judgment. Young notes that many presume works are illegal just because they are “in public space or … painted in a particular style” (Young , 4). The common social awareness of illegality as street art's historical norm contributes to this presumption. Moreover when illegality is unclear and there are no positive indicators of sanction, then passersby should presume illegality. Because it is the norm, only negative conditions are required to reasonably presume illegality—the absence of indicators of sanction, authorship, or city approval. Conversely, there must be a positive condition to reasonably presume sanction (either tacit or explicit)—the artist's e‐mail, name, or that of a collective, e.g. “Trek Matthews, Living Walls 2012.”3 (See Figures 2 and 3.) Actual names would generally not be left under the illegality condition for fear of penalty (the anonymity commitment). Additionally, a site itself can be an indication of illegality. Works on certain city areas, statues, or billboards are indicators of illegality. Spectators can reasonably presume that no city or person would give sanction to them. Neighborhoods accepting of street art can be indicators of de facto legality. If there seem to be indicators of sanction, but not definitive ones, then spectators may suspend judgment until new information is gained.
Trek Matthews (2012) for Living Walls. Cabbagetown, Atlanta, GA. Photograph reproduced by courtesy of Tony Chackal.
Trek Matthews (2012) for Living Walls. Cabbagetown, Atlanta, GA. Photograph reproduced by courtesy of Tony Chackal.
When illegality is not prima facie epistemically transparent, it may still be knowable, detectable, or discoverable. The nature of street art challenges how art is encountered, evaluated, and appreciated. While museums and galleries provide pamphlets and wall text explaining various nonaesthetic features, street art's nature makes accessing these more difficult, but not impossible. Spectators may use online resources such as street art websites, phone apps, and social media to garner information. They may also use digital resources to locate works and discover key features about them.4
Epistemic transparency of works being street art or advertising is also concerning. The concern arises because like some sanctioned street art, some advertising presents itself and seeks to be seen as illegal street art. Consider examples of stencils or posters with prominent street art styles, but promoting the sale of a product or event. Similar style and form encourages the perception of a historical connection between illegal street art and guerilla advertising. Companies adopting street art style and form typically market to demographics perceived as sympathetic to street art. This creates confusion for spectators—it becomes difficult to discern advertising from street art. Yet, just as there are indicators of sanction, so too are there indicators of advertising. These include some presentation, depiction, or representation of a product, event, brand, or company along with locational and contextual indicators, such as the proximity of an advert to its associated storefront. That advertising appropriates street art style and form can be particularly obnoxious to street art enthusiasts, because as scholars have noted, a prominent value in street art culture is opposition to the dominance of commercial advertising in public space (Baldini ). Spectators must be active in discerning illegal from sanctioned street art and street art from advertising.
One complication for illegality and epistemic transparency is that some individual works are sanctioned, even as they are part of a larger illegal series. Consider Tatyana Fazlalizadeh's, Stop Telling Women to Smile. Each poster depicted a fierce‐looking woman and a slogan such as, “Women: Not Here for Your Entertainment” or “My Name Is Not Baby.” These occurred in various cities, and while most instances were illegal, some were sanctioned. Because the posters were so aesthetically similar, it was not always obvious which were illegal and which were sanctioned. The content of the work was consistent, even as the form varied. This raises two issues: the nature of the presumption process and illegality's contribution to a work's meaning.
While production processes of works are sometimes ambiguous, even mysterious, nonaesthetic features can be revealed through repeated viewings or actively discovered. A passerby sees a work, presumes illegality, but through Internet inquiry later discovers it was sanctioned. The passerby may then revise an initial aesthetic evaluation and appreciation in lieu of additional information. While street art is typically ephemeral, it is not always the case. Passersby may see the same pieces repeatedly in their neighborhoods or on their routes. This invites not only repeated viewings but also ongoing engagement and inquiry. New discovery can assist in revising appreciation. If a piece was once appreciated for being illegal but is discovered to be sanctioned, then it can still be appreciated, although under different terms and possibly for different reasons. Epistemic transparency is a sufficient condition to judge a work illegal, but given the historical norm, it is not necessary.
When works are illegal, this is at first a nonaesthetic feature of the form or production process. When they are illicit, this is an aesthetic feature of the work's content: what it expresses, depicts, represents, or means. But these divisions are blurry and involve overlap rather than being strictly demarcating. In Stop Telling Women to Smile, there is a prima facie illicitness throughout the content of each poster: the fierce‐looking woman who is re‐appropriating public space from its patriarchal dominance through powerful public declarations. But when works are illegally made, illicitness extends from the illegal form, not just the illicit content. In this case, it is because Fazlalizadeh actually assumed risk, was audacious, and exposed herself to danger in re‐appropriating public space by making illegal works. This allowed the illegal form to enhance the illicit content. Illegality became integral to the meaning, and risk, danger, and audacity were brought from form to content. Consider two additional cases.
While not all street art is illegal, there are certain street art genres that are categorically illegal, such as graffiti and billboard and street sign alteration. In these cases, epistemic transparency of illegality is implied by the genre. (See Figure 1.) For example, Poster Boy is a collective of artists in New York who work with only razorblades to cut images from advertisements and stick them on others, creating striking deconstructed mashups. Illegality is epistemically transparent because spectators recognize that it is highly unlikely that cities or parties who rent advertisement space would give sanction to artists to destroy costly adverts and subvert their messages.
Likewise, some artists such as Clet Abraham alter street signs.5 As civic symbols that concern public safety, only cities would be authorized to give sanction to such work. Spectators can reasonably presume that cities would not allow artists to alter signs, because it would qualify as destruction of public property and might be perceived to compromise public safety. Abraham uses signs not merely for their physical street features but also as a way to challenge what he perceives as one‐way public dialogues. Illegality affords sites and spontaneity for his “interventions.” Additionally, physical and social aspects can be perceived as part of the artwork's meaning. Abraham counts on the contribution of illegality for the meaning of street artworks:
We are increasingly overrun by rating [or safety]; urban space delivers a quantity of basic and unilateral messages, certainly useful, but nevertheless mind numbing. I would like, in return, that the unilaterality of the message be substituted to the idea of reversibility, that a new meaning is added to the first, pointing to other levels of discourse. (quoted in Street Art Galerie , my translation).
In these two examples the materiality condition of advert‐posters or street signs could only be used illegally. These physical street features are constitutive of the works’ meanings, along with their sociocultural features. If such works were sanctioned, their meaning would be altered or destroyed. Given that part of the meaning seems to consist in protesting the inequitable use of public space and the public dominance of advertising, then illegality is constitutive of both materiality and meaning.
This suggests that in illegal street artworks, risk, danger, and audacity can be both nonaesthetic and aesthetic features, respectively. First, the three are nonaesthetic features because they are conditions of the illegal production process. But they can also be aesthetic features—the work itself can be risky, dangerous, and audacious (see Figure 1). As aesthetic features, the three supervene on their nonaesthetic counterparts (as well as on other nonaesthetic features). A street artwork will not be risky, dangerous, or audacious in the distinctive sense I am raising unless the work was made under those conditions. The nonaesthetic features supervened upon by aesthetic ones include contextual features, not just formal ones (Walton ). Illegality concerns both the material and sociocultural senses of the street because for a work to be illegal it must physically use the street and that it is illegal reflects sociocultural laws. Risk, danger, and audacity can be seen in works as aesthetic features if they are first nonaesthetic features and the presumption of illegality is reasonable. Not all street artworks are significantly risky, dangerous, or audacious, so they will not have these as aesthetic features merely because of illegality. But when a work is risky, dangerous, or audacious, it is so because of risk, danger, or audacity as nonaesthetic features of the production process. Therefore, risk, danger, and audacity can be appreciated both as nonaesthetic features of the production process and as aesthetic features of the artwork.
VII. CONCLUSION
Not all street art is illegal, but illegality enables and warrants different ways of producing and appreciating street art. Street artworks can gain materiality and meaning from illegality. This underscores not only the illegality condition's historical importance, but also its role in creating and reflecting distinctive social and aesthetic meaning in street artworks. Two points concerning sanctioned street art should be noted. First, some street artists continue to work illegally even if sanctioned opportunities are available because it allows for spontaneity, greater autonomy, and an authentic production form. Second, some of street art's political and subversive power extends from being illegal. Sanctioned street art risks having diminished political power in that particular sense because some subversive character mitigates when sanctioned. Indeed, “if graffiti changed anything—it would be illegal” (Banksy ).6
FILMOGRAPHY
REFERENCES
Justia US Law.
Street Art Galerie.
“The 50 Biggest Street Art Arrests.”
Footnotes
Atlanta's 1982 Public Art Ordinance requires works to be preapproved by the Office of Cultural Affairs, The Office of Transportation, and The Urban Design Commission.
An interesting example of tension between property owners, artists, and community members regarding street art was demonstrated in a Living Walls case. See the PBS film A Tale of Two Murals (2014): http://www.pba.org/programming/tale-two-murals/.
During Banksy's 2013 or Invader's 2015 NY “residencies,” digital media was integral to sharing locations of works, sites, and pertinent details about them. See the documentary film, Banksy Does New York (2014): http://www.hbo.com/documentaries/banksy-does-new-york.
For an example, see “Flower Power,” at http://www.streetartgalerie.com/panneau-de-clet-c2x17973239.
Thanks to Christy Mag Uidhir, Nicholas Riggle, Gregg Horowitz, Roy T. Cook, Alison Lanier, Erich Hatala Matthes, Christiane Merrit, Christopher Nagel, Shelby Moser, Alison Young, and audiences at the Philosophy of Street Art Conference (New York, 2015) for a lively and productive discussion. Special thanks to Karen Gover, Rene Jagnow, Sondra Bacharach, and an anonymous referee for invaluable comments and encouragement during the writing process.
