Both graffiti and street art are noticeable fixtures in our
contemporary urban environments. The individuals and collectivities that are
responsible for this activity are as diverse as the content of their work.
Although often seen as an anarchic aesthetic movement(s) working outside the
machinations of capital and government, recent scholarship on graffiti and
street art has begun to focus on how these creative practices are being
co-opted and commodified by larger interests (e.g., municipal councils, business
improvement districts and corporations) in order to control their placement,
and/or to sell goods and services which are deemed desirable. In some areas of
the world, this co-option and commodification work within a single block or a
neighbourhood; other times, whole cities are aesthetically transformed.
Just as the dividing line between graffiti and street art is
ambiguous, so are the forms and impact of this co-option and commodification.
Graffiti may be used in the fields of fashion, film, real estate and tourism to
sell items or experiences; it may also be used to resist capitalism and offer
an angry voice of the marginalized. Street art may be an aesthetic balm
covering the wounds of a gentrifying city; it may also be a way for neighbours
to rally around art in order to resist being dispossessed of their homes.
Questions of co-optation and commodification fit squarely into the debate over
the sustainability of street oppositional practices and resistance to powerful
interests.
