Street art is a general term that defines all those forms of visual art that are created in public spaces, generally an insignificant expression that develops outside conventional exhibition rules. During the graffiti boom of the early 1980s, the term street art acquired its popularity and continues to be used in later incarnations, such as Stencil graffiti, wheat-pasted poster art or sticker art.
When we want to refer to works of art created in the same context, the terms ‘urban art’, ‘guerrilla art’, ‘post-graffiti’ and ‘neo-graffiti’ are often used. With the exception, of course, of what is done for reasons of territorial dominance or pure vandalism, traditional spray painting often falls into this class.
Artists often choose the streets as their gallery because, free from the limits of formal art, they have direct contact with the public in general.
In a way that catches your attention for some reason or raises immediate questions, street artists sometimes present messages with social content, imbued with aesthetic value.
To spread their designs, street artists often travel between countries.
Some artists have even gained a worldwide audience of fanatics, thus provoking the media and the world’s general attention.
This is something that many advertising companies use, inviting the artist, like the one he expresses in his art, street art, to promote their product in his own style.
In urban art, there is a powerful current of activism and upheaval.
For the oppressed, or for the financially weaker individuals who can not bring about change, street art can be a powerful platform for influencing the public and a powerful form of political expression.
A light form of vandalism is used by some street artists
as a way to increase awareness of social and political problems.
Other street artists use urban space as an untapped form of their personal artwork, while others prefer the challenge and danger they take, usually illegally, when putting their artwork in public.
The biggest reason for most, if not all, artists is that in any public space they can practice street art, displaying their artwork without delay and unnecessary explanations, allowing a much wider audience to approach than traditional works.
Since the late 1980s, street art in Greece has been active, but in 2011 it gained ground in Athens, where the country’s economic crisis raised the
voice of resistance through a series of artists, creating allegorical works and social comments in the historical center of the city and in the Exarcheia region.
The New York Times has also reported extensively, publishing stories about the street art crisis, and art in general.
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