Street Art: Art or Non-Art?

According to Yuriko Saito in Everyday Aesthetics "mainstream pragmatic art"...

• is removed from the beholder
• incites an aesthetic experience
• was created with the artist's intention in mind
• has a determinate boundary
• is presumed to be permanent and fixed
• does not allow modifications or engagement

While non-art...

• lacks authorship
• is unstable/ lacks permanence
• allows direct engagement or manipulation
• can be modified
• involves/values the lower senses, more than just sight and sound
• is without a frame or determined boundary
• is practical or purposeful
• act as "fill-ins" for our everyday longings of art (p. 17)

So then it seems that street art lies somewhere between these two categories. It has authorship and usually a determinate boundary. It does not often require or allow for engagement beyond that of the creator. All of the characteristics signal it as art. However, it is impermanent and can be modified. And while the street art artifact itself may have a "frame," it is also unclear if the artwork becomes a part of the structure. Once the sidewalk or building or public structure is modified it seems as if the image and the surface to which it was applied become a cohesive entity. Thus, when seen from this perspective, it would follow that street art is in fact without a frame, and thus takes on another characteristic of "non-art."

Additionally, Saito argues that cities are created by individuals adding buildings, structures, and infrastructures over a long period of time. They are accumulated collectively and thus "there is no specific point at which this townscape was born; nor is there a specific author or a group of authors whose intention may shed light on its current appearance" (p. 23). In response to this view of cities and public spaces as author-less or owner-less, one might see street art as a way to add authorship to abandoned objects.

Further, it seems that such a movement was motivated by the lack of aesthetic experience present in our industrialized society. Our society has largely abandoned, or destroyed, the natural aesthetic of our surroundings by replacing it with asphault, bricks and concrete. Perhaps street art emerged as an attempt to remake our environment into an aesthetically appealing one. As McLuhan would put it, the medium became the message. The message in street art is that the street is no longer visually appealing, our surroundings have become the canvas. Individuals feel the need to communicate directly with the public -- outside of the constraints of a museum or gallery. If images are already everywhere, on billboards, buses, newsstands, sides of buildings, why not add to them. Who says that visible surfaces can be owned by an individual or a company or a government? Who owns the sidewalk, the brick wall really? Especially if it confronts the public everyday. Doesn't it's facade become publicly owned by all the eyes that view on a daily basis? Is it so wrong to want to change it aesthetically?