Oaxaca street art

Street art – def.: art developed in public spaces. The term includes graffiti, sticker art, wheatpasting, poster art and other art interventions in the public space.


I like street art because they transform the often so-gray public space into a little space for poetry and humor. Although the root of street art is graffiti and vandalism of public spaces, nowadays this form of art has become mainstream and widely accepted. Shepard Fairey held a major exhibition at the ICA museum in Boston; osgemeos paintings are worth thousand of dollars. And Banksy has an exhibition at the Bristol Museum.


Public spaces have become so boring, lifeless and without identity that I welcome these interventions to remind me of the creativity and aesthetic sense that surrounds me. And I love the public aspect, the transformation of lifeless, grey space into a canvas for color, humor and culture, reclaiming the public space.


I went to Oaxaca, a lovely town on the south of Mexico. I was impressed by the amount of cultural option present there – not only museums of colonial and indigenous art but a lot of local contemporary artists’ scene. Oaxaca is a beautiful small-scale town, so the street art present in the city was a sign of the creativity and vitality of the local artists more than trying to give life to an anonymous building.



Note 1 - a nice website for street art: wooster collective
Note 2 - Support Human Rights in Burma by Shepard Fairey (a little wink to one of my extraordinary classmates, Jacob)