Peter Bengtsen

Beyond the Public Art Machine: A Critical Examination of Street Art as Public Art

This article examines street art as a specific type of public art. With Patricia C. Phillips’ idea of the failing “public art machine” as a point of departure, it contextualises the discussion of public art as a phenomenon that goes beyond sanctioned artistic expressions. The article examines the characteristics of street art and demonstrates that street art and public artworks have a number of traits in common. However, it is argued that street art’s unsanctioned nature functions as an essential carrier of meaning, and that a practical separation must be upheld between street art and the sphere of commissioned public art in order to preserve street art’s particular qualities. This argument finds support in the experiences derived from the practical inclusion of street art in other institutional contexts (galleries and museums), which arguably has led to a loss of meaning. However, while it is argued that street art must remain practically separate from the public art machine in order to retain its unsanctioned nature, the article contends that on a theoretical level it is fruitful to think of street art as a specific type of public art. Such a shift in discourse can open up the field of public art theory and provide new and interesting perspectives on public art as an art form which is not failing, but truly engages with the public. (Less)

In search of academic legitimacy : The current state of scholarship on graffiti and street art

Abstract Much has changed since the 1960s when the first scholarship on contemporary graffiti appeared. The current paper is an attempt to outline and contextualize a number of recurrent challenges facing researchers of graffiti and street art, as well as developments that have taken place in this scholarly field. The aim of creating this outline is to assist in increasing the amount, and improving the quality, of future scholarship on graffiti and street art. We recognize, however, that although many of the challenges have at one time seemed insurmountable, over time they have lessened as graffiti and street art have grown as art movements, and because a small cadre of tenacious scholars focusing on graffiti and street art has published and taught in this area. An increasing, though limited, number of academic venues focused on graffiti and street art scholarship has slowly emerged. We also recognize that with increased scholarship that has laid the foundation, new avenues to explore graffiti and street art have become apparent.

Carelessness or Curatorial Chutzpah? Controversies Surrounding Street Art in the Museum

Summary Taking the exhibition Art in the Streets, which was shown at The Geffen Contemporary at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles from 17 April to 8 August, 2011, as its main point of departure, the present article discusses street arts association with the institutions of the art world. Art in the Streets sparked a lot of debate before, while and after it took place. The article primarily focuses on two aspects of the controversies connected with the exhibition. First, it looks at the reaction of conservative American commentators, who saw Art in the Streets as problematic because of its apparent validation of vandalism as art. The article argues that this critical response should be understood not just as the result of pre-existing animosity towards graffiti and street art, but also as an expression of a particular idea about the role museums play in society. Second, the article considers the reaction to Art in the Streets of street art aficionados, who saw the museums representation of street based artistic expressions as problematic. The criticism from within the street art world was fuelled by the removal of a commissioned artwork by the Italian artist BLU from the façade of the museum building prior to the opening of the exhibition. On the one hand, it is argued that this curatorial decision can be seen as symptomatic of the shows failure to integrate a non-institutional form of expression in an institutional context. On the other hand, it is argued that the removal can be related to the whitewashing process which takes place in the street every day, thus effectively reproducing in the institutional environment the conditions under which street art is produced. With an outset in a number of artistic responses to Art in the Streets, the article is concluded by a more overarching discussion about street arts relationship with the institutional art world. Here it is argued that the relevance and perceived authenticity of street art is challenged by the interest from excluding and conservational art institutions, which street art to some extent exists in opposition to. Given the unsanctioned nature of street art, as well as street arts connection to the street, it is further argued that while institutions can create shows that document and discuss the history of art in the street, and can show artworks derived from this context, street art proper cannot exist in an institutional context.

Just gardens?: On the struggle for space and spatial justice

Abstract This article discusses the public park as a garden of justice: at once a concrete, geographical place and a more intangible space constituted by struggles between different spatial definitions. The case of the article is Ørstedsparken, a public park in the centre of Copenhagen which is a wellknown homosexual cruising site. In recent years, the municipality has cut down vegetation in the park in order to regulate and/or prevent cruising. The article proposes that this targeting of homosexual cruising in the park may be a surrogate way to impose heteronormativity upon those who fall outside of this norm. It is further suggested that exposing the men who retreat to public parks to have sex may be a way to reduce the insecurity which, according to the writings on spatial justice by Andreas Philippopoulos-Mihalopoulos, comes with the transient nature of space.