One issue that kept coming up throughout the conference was the Illegality Condition for Street Art–whether or not works of street art require there to be (in fact if not also in belief) some (regularly enforced) law against the creation of such. Here’s what I took away from the various debates about illegality. 1. If there is an illegality condition on Street Art, it will most plausibly be had by Street Art (Form) rather than Street Art (Content)–See previous post on Two Kinds of Street Art. 2. Any worthwhile illegality condition won’t be grounded in mere illegality per se. Instead, the illegality condition must be in terms of what the relevant illegality reflects, speaks to, stands for, or purports to track: i.e., the attitudes and beliefs of the lawmakers and law enforcers, especially those concerning the relationship and tensions between public and private spheres, community rights and the proprietary rights … Continue reading →

The Street Art Conference was a rousing success. Despite the winter storm on Thursday, March 5th, seriously hampering audience attendance for the otherwise terrific Artists Panel, the conference had a high turn out overall, with a fantastic turn out for Allison Young’s Keynote Address on Friday at Pratt and for the presentations and closing reception on Saturday at NYU. For this to mean much of anything, however, requires that along the way we learned as a result something philosophically interesting about either Street Art itself or the enquiry therein. I think we managed to do just that. What I Learned at the Street Art Conference Two Kinds of Street Art When folks talk about “street art” they typically employ (often frustratingly moving between) one of the following two senses: Street Art (Form)—Art in some Street Medium Works having certain formal, compositional, material conditions mediated by certain contexts or relations (spatial, … Continue reading →

 Philosophy’s Street Cred: Limits & Interest Rates The conference goes multi-borough today moving from Brooklyn’s Pratt to Manhattan’s NYU. Accusations of selling-out no doubt to follow.  “Signature Counterexamples to Institutional Theories of Art” Christopher Nagel (Minnesota) Chris will be discussing how certain works of graffiti, specifically those of the heavily stylized signatory sort (tags, throw-ups), constitute counterexamples to Institutional Theory of Art. Chris discusses the primary/secondary presentation distinction and claims graffiti writing’s primary presentation is to graffiti subcultures and so not to an artworld public.  “Saving the Writing on the Wall: Two Models for Street Art and its Preservation” Alison Lanier, Angela Sun, & Erich Hatala Matthes (Wellesley College) Alison, Angela, & Erich explore the various preservation models one might want to adopt for street art.  Adopting the performance model would claim that the preservation of street is motivated by preservation of embodiments/evidence of the performance, which has long since … Continue reading →

Day Two: Gleaming the Cube “Political Art & Street Art Definitions” Christiane Merritt (Washington University, St. Louis) Merritt argues that adopting the exemplar approach to the conditions for being street art results in certain kinds of street art (political street art) being needlessly ruled out as such. She begins by discussing some prima facie plausible conditions for street art: Site Publicity: the work must be located in a public area Audience Publicity: the public must be the proper audience Illegality: the work must not be authorized or sanctioned by the relevant authority with legal standing Merritt uses the work of Tatyana Fazlalizadeh & Guerilla Girls to challenge both site and audience publicity conditions and the work of Gran Fury to call out the illegality condition. What these all have in common, of course, is their political content.  “Street Art & Deception” Shelby Moser (Kent) Moser will be focusing on what … Continue reading →

Shitty Winter Weather, Awesome Artist Panel Thursday, March 5th 5:45pm The conference kicked off today with the Arists Panel featuring ELBOW-TOE, HOTTEA, Leon Reid IV, and Tatyana Fazlalizadeh with the discussion lead by fellow organizer Nick Riggle. Reid’s work takes a clever, playful, and a touch fantastical perspective on the otherwise unremarkable ordinary objects one expects to encounter while walking on the street (street signs, lamp posts, newspaper dispensers, bus benches, etc.). Reid also discusses his transition from Street Artist to studio-based Commissioned Public Artist. ELBOW-TOE’s work is more traditionally oriented (large wheatpasted linocuts and layered murals affixed to brick walls, text graffiti on industrial doors).  HOTTEA works with geometric forms of block text suggestive of depth, most strikingly when placed onto a chain link fence. His text work is not restricted to tagging (the word often carries political weight) nor is his work with geometric forms and depth confined … Continue reading →