Street art is a powerful form of artistic expression that has been gaining traction in the modern world. It is a hybrid form of art that relies on the knowledge of its spectators and manipulates the physicality of the subject to express its point of view. From an economic standpoint, street art encourages both residents and tourists to visit local businesses and regions. It has evolved from urban spaces to virtual communities, galleries, public spaces, and public discourses.
Street art has become an object of appropriation by pop culture and the dominant symbolism of the contemporary art scene around the world. Street art is often related to activism that raises awareness about pressing social and environmental issues. It is territorial and rebellious in nature, but it also tends to transmit a social or political message that provokes discussion and reaction. Unlike graffiti, street art is intended to provoke reflection rather than rejection among the general public by making its purpose more evident. The issue of permits has also been at the heart of street art, since graffiti is often done illegally while today street art can be the product of an agreement or even a commission. Franco was one of the first to turn the negative into positive by developing a new art form on steel doors in 1978. Since then, some street artists have gained international attention for their work and have made a total transition from street art to the world of conventional art, some without ceasing to produce street art.
In SoHo, a New York City branch, urban art scholars found that the rise of graffiti art caused relatively low crime rates compared to other neighborhoods in the city. Street art has been validated as a cultural phenomenon despite being considered illegal in many cities around the world. During the 1980s, street art and graffiti reached art galleries and museums, at a time when artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat from the New York street art scene gave credibility to that area and took their street works to the world of fine art. Street art arrived in Sweden in the 1990s and has since become the most popular way of establishing art in public space. Keith Haring played an important role in the rise of the New York street art scene of the 1980s, creating paintings and drawings inspired by graffiti that broke the barriers between street culture and high-end art. He began documenting the New York street art scene and street artists in the 1970s, and he also greatly contributed to the development of the entire movement by distributing his book called Subway Art, published in the early 1980s. Mosaic is another form of street art which involves creating an image with a set of parts or smaller pieces to look like an integral work of art.
Meanwhile, Illescas states that street art is more likely to be recognized as such in art districts where officially approved “beautification projects” use public art to attract more businesses and new residents which can contribute to gentrification problems. After his early death, Jean-Michel Basquiat's reputation skyrocketed and today he is considered one of the first and greatest exponents of visual arts in African-American history. Finland's street art scene grew rapidly from the 1980s until 1998 when Helsinki initiated a ten-year zero-tolerance policy that declared all forms of street art illegal, punishable by high fines enforced through private security contractors. Some of the most famous names in the world of street art such as Space Invader and Shepard Fairey based their activities on repeatedly creating the same work of art in different cities and urban spaces. Each year's edition consists of numerous street performances, creation of a new bohemian street art neighborhood in the city, concerts, painting large murals, and exhibition of other forms of creative arts. The discussion about meaning of street art continues in rooms occupied by academics and critics who reflect on interaction between notions of visual arts, performing arts, conceptual arts, and ways articulating these forms in wonderful world of street arts. In this context it can be said that it is a movement, definitely an artistic expression, even more than that: an art form in its own right.
