Ars: časopis Ústavu Dejín Umenia Slovenskej Akadémie Vied (43.2010)

argues that grafhti, post-grafhti, and Street practices
hâve remained outside of the discipline of art history
because of the legalities associated with the mode of
display. She also argues that aspects of Street, graffiti,
and post-grafhti practices are représentative of what
Howard Becker has termed separate "Hr/ IFofZTfk
Street art practices, functioning outside institutional
frameworks of legality, operáte in such a way so that
a direct interrogation occurs between the artist and
the public conception of space itselfA
I would like to offer a different analysis, because
these forms of expression and art are coming out
of areas that are not associated with larger systemic
institutions; they have been ignored and ghettoized.
A principal reason that grafhti, Street art, or post-
grafhti practices have been ignored is because of
the elitism of the art institution itself. As is the case
with many diffenng art movements m art history,
the trope of a bohemian subculture unaffected by
the nuances of society is generalized as the means to
understanding the practice. In the majority of pub-
lications addressing Street art as a style, the practice
is generally conhgured to be one that is outside of
sociétal norms, and one that is inherently anti-capi-
talist. For example, uses of terms such as
AA,^ro//%<fAo;žW%yand Ao/AtoAygare commonplace.
Similarly to the biographical information provided in
every major movement in western art history from
the late 19^ and 2(A Century onwards, the idea of a
rebellious vanguard leading the way to a new kind
of art is paramount to the critical theory of Street,
grafhti, and post-grafhti.
The originality and authenticity of the practice
is currently, presently, being dehned. What we, as
theorists, historians, and artists, are currently privy
to is an example of a historical moment where, be-
cause of media saturation and the unprecedented
image culture of our time, the canon is being writ-
ten as it is being practiced. The canon, set as those
precedents that will dehne the homogenized style for
later years, is currently being dehned and has yet to
gain institutional worth, because the institution has
yet to catch up to the practice. The institution has
yet to dehne it, theorize it, and control the output

^ Ibidem, pp. 14-15. Also see BECKER, H. S.: Hrt UTAh.
Berkeley 1982.


d. f.'AdA, 2PP& PA/%.* CAr/m' A C.

of it. Or, as Donald Kuspit comments,
A/hD/ o/ ggFAhw or torfor /oprofo //W
iwA/ WAAw gwfor ^ orA A
Ao ifOfAAr Within the concept of gallery leftism
elaborated on by Kuspit, 1 am inclined to include
the systemic institutional complex as well, as it con-
sistently ignores productions outside of its sphere
of influence and production. Plainly stated, these
methods and practices of urban public sphere(s)
engagement are ignored specihcally because the
practice is potentially too démocratie, participatory,
and radical, ultimately fracturing the authoritative
abstract space of institutional critique.
This idea can be further unpacked by examin-
mg Hal Foster's comments concerning grafhďs
KUSPIT, D.: Crowding the Pictute: Notes on American Ac-
tivist Art Today. In: Hrt A Ař P//Ak Ed. A. RAVEN.
Ann Arbour 1989, pp. 255-268, particularly p. 265.

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