Out of the shadows

Street art holds promise of vast creativity and originality giving rise to a complete genre of artists who are not only popular in the art circuit, their masterpieces are also eagerly awaited.

- Shubra Mazumdar

Even a decade ago any attempt to use a wall that is strictly not one’s own for purposes of venting one’s creative energies was frowned upon and incited severe invective and even civic action. By and large it was condemned as graffiti and therefore not officially sanctioned nor institutionally condoned. Then the news channels internationally began reporting about the mysterious Banksy, a street art painter who was not seen nor heard but whose works on public walls in London drew attention for it was not strictly graffiti nor was it an acceptable emerging art form to be mounted on galleries. Over the years, street art has moved a long way since that time and though it has not yet resolved sticky issues like official approval or wholehearted acceptance as art, it has today exploded into a movement worldwide. Its appeal has taken on viral proportions as the depressed and neglected streets of every prominent city worldwide is now sporting some street art tendencies giving a new dimension to art vocabulary. Even auctioneers and gallerists have begun taking an interest in it and trying to work round its sub-culture status for clearly this form of art has not reached the public domain via the conventional gallery route and yet has caught public attention just as strongly. Although street art has now come to stay, paradoxically, there is still no one concrete definition available for it. While some enthusiasts and art lovers embrace it as the most vibrant form of democratic art, others run it down as anti-capitalist, a nuisance, a way of exposing dissent using public space and so on. Collectors, too, are none too enthusiastic about it because unlike conventional forms, it cannot be acquired and sported as a trophy in one’s living room as the other forms of art for already the likes of Banksy, ShephARD Fairey have become the stuff of art conversations worldwide. For the residents in whose localities this art form is visible on their walls, there is a