Is It Right to Exhibit Street Art in Museums and Galleries?

It’s the question I’ve been asked most often: what's the point of having works by street artists in a gallery? Anyone who frequents the art world has now learned that the artist's intention, their history, and the context, both of the artist and the work, are an integral part of designating an object a “work of art.” It’s not enough; the art world also needs to endorse that it really is one (we talked about it here). Based on these definitions, if one were to attribute to the street artist the intention to work on the street, for the street, and in the urban context, the answer would be: the works exhibited in a museum or gallery would lose much of their meaning, to the point of questioning their status as a ‘work of art.’ On the other hand, an urban artist could in fact say: but I didn't even want to make a work of art from the beginning. One could therefore philosophically debate whether an object can or cannot be a work of art regardless of the author's intention. PichiAvo installation of the Diaspasi exhibition at the Wunderkammern gallery

PichiAvo exhibition setup for the Diaspasi show at the Wunderkammern gallery.

The context around a work in the art system is not called ‘context’ but ‘curation’—in art, everything is different, we know that. From all this, it is clear that street art works should, curatorially speaking, be on the street, but there’s a catch. The catch comes from three extra-curatorial factors: form, message, and the artist's fame. Ordinary people fall in love with certain forms or certain messages to such an extent that they consider wanting them in their own living environments (home, office), and then the artist's fame does the rest, creating a desire. If Banksy messes up the world, I want it at home too. It should be understood that no serious gallerist would ever sell works stolen from the street, just as no street artist would detach a work from the street to resell it. However, the vast majority of artists and gallerists would not disdain seizing the opportunity to make a profit from this new demand. Banksy's Seasons Greetings at the M9 in Mestre All in all, there's someone who creates interesting forms around interesting messages, there's a cultural movement, there's a strong media presence, there are collectors eager to be part of the system, and there's an opportunity to do business.

Banksy Seasons Greetings allM9 - Mestre

The social aspect is also added, thanks to the sale of works to private individuals, off the street: messages, forms, and artists enter the art system, becoming immortal. The works that end up in museums and galleries are not the same as those found on the street; they are normally made in the artist's studio, conceived with the same market logic as all other works, with elements of repetition, which the art world cannot do without, and scarcity. We live in a complex and multifaceted world, theories and practice are intertwined in a constant love and detachment story. Personally, I think that, beyond intentions, in the end, by detaching oneself, one must take the beautiful part of the whole story: this time it is the urban world, the world of the everyday and of non-intentions, that has enveloped and convinced the art world. On the other hand, we can certainly note that at the heart of everything... there is always the world of desires and the economy, which, after all, constitute the water in which we swim.