Street (M)Ar(Ke)T

: how an aesthetic practice has become a marketable product

Abstract

The removal of street artworks from urban walls, their restoration, and their(re)contexualisation into institutional and regulated frames, such as art museums andgalleries, as well as the decision to sell them to the highest bidder, are aspects that not onlyraise moral and legal issues, but also seem to deprive street art of those peculiarities thatmake it different from other artistic expressions produced to be inside artistic institutions orprivate (either institutional or non-institutional) spaces. This study aims at shedding light onthe effects of the museumification and institutionalization of street art, on the pro and consof regulating a phenomenon born “to challenge and call into question dominant uses ofpublic spaces in contemporary global metropolises” (Baldini, 2018:29). Art dealers, cityinhabitants, artists, curators’ viewpoints are here critically analysed to try to understand howthe ways to approach street art have changed over the last two decades as well as to find outif street artists’ self-claimed purpose of making a gift to city dwellers to make them feel partof the city life (Young, 2014) is still alive. Indeed, as Young claims after interviewing severalstreet artists such as Pure Evil, Kaff-eine, CDH and many more: “Street art is often motivatedby generosity: the artist seek to make a gift of the artwork to the spectator, the neighbourhoodand the city itself” (2014:27). A gift that according to Waclawek, often comes from artists’wish to “create a space for reflection and observation in otherwise utilitarian streets and tomotivate people to reconsider their environments” (2011:76). This inquiry seeks to bring outunder what circumstances and to what extent the logic of profit has taken over the idea ofaccessible gift in the street art world.

Date of Award	11 Jan 2021
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	Universidade Católica Portuguesa
Supervisor	Luísa Santos (Supervisor)