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Art & Art History vocabulary · Contemporary Art

Street art

Meaning in art & art history, with examples

nounCommon term

In art & art history, street art means: Art made in public outdoor spaces, such as murals, stencils, stickers and paste-ups on walls, often without official permission.

In Turkish: sokak sanatı

How it is used

Closely related to graffiti but usually more image-based. Some street artists, such as Banksy, have become famous, and street art festivals now commission large murals. Debates often concern legality, gentrification and whether street art belongs in galleries.

Example sentences

  1. The street art in this neighbourhood changes every few months as new murals appear.

  2. Can street art keep its meaning when it is moved into a gallery?

Common collocations

  • street art festival
  • street art tour
  • street artist
  • large-scale mural
  • site-specificMade for one particular place and depending on its history, architecture or surroundings, so that the work would lose its meaning if it were moved.
  • contemporary artThe art of the present time, usually meaning work made from about the 1960s or 1970s to today, often using new media, ideas and ways of exhibiting.
  • commissionA formal request, with payment, for an artist to make a particular work; also the work made in this way. As a verb, to order such a work.
  • installationAn artwork made for a particular space, often filling a whole room, which visitors walk into or around and experience with more than just their eyes.

More terms: Contemporary Art

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