The Beginning of Art on the Street

In the late twentieth century, graffiti and street art became an international phenomenon. In the 1970s, young people in New York used marker pens to write their names, or 'tags', on walls around the city.  The trend spread, and from the 1970s, aerosol paint graffiti became a common sight on trains, buses and walls in cities around the world. In the 1990s, graffiti continued but there was also an explosion in street art around the world, some of which became sophisticated and political.

Art vandalism?    

Is graffiti art or vandalism? This depends on your point of view, but in many countries, writing or painting on public or private property is considered vandalism. Many city councils complain about the high cost of cleaning graffiti off buildings, buses and trains. In some areas, councils have tried to encourage artists not to paint randomly on walls by allowing them to work in designated areas. Taiwan is one such place and there are 'graffiti zones' where artists are free to paint and write on walls. In São Paulo in Brazil, the city council has even allowed some graffiti artists to paint on the city's subway trains.
Recently, there has been a growing recognition of graffiti as an art. There have been major exhibitions of street art in galleries in Paris, London and Los Angeles. The American artist Elura Emerald organised a street art exhibition at a New York gallery in 2008. She defended street artists, saying 'artists who paint on the street are merely expressing themselves, not hurting anyone. They should be appreciated and celebrated'.