Urban art: consumed by everyone. Valued by whom?

By Alice Everton and Rafael Heluy

Cars in traffic jams, pedestrians rushing to reach their destination on time, street vendors trying to sell their goods to secure a small income at the end of the day. Different classes inhabit the same places under different circumstances. There is one thing, however, common to all: the art that surrounds them.

Even though the car driver doesn't become a pedestrian, just as street vendors aren't part of the largest consumer group of "academic" art—which is confined to specific environments, geared toward a specific audience—there is a type of artistic production that not only serves as a visual enhancement of the urban environment but is also accessible to everyone who passes through the area where it is located.

Urban art, generally associated with social movements, the emotional appeals of its creators, the representation of a concern, a thought, a piece of history, among many other situations, is present in city centers and suburbs and is responsible for the split second in which a person presses pause on everyday life and, in a short time, turns their gaze to a work of art. There, among cars, pedestrians, and street vendors, in the open air.

The freedom of support, however, gives rise to countless questions that implicitly arise in the development of a street art project. Who allowed it to be created? Under what circumstances did the artist develop it? Does anyone support them?
To begin the debate about the appreciation of urban art, therefore, it is important to emphasize that, however spontaneous it may be, it does not emerge from nowhere. Sometimes, there is a professional behind those drawings who must bear the costs of executing that work. After all, if it is consumed and, above all, in demand, someone has to, in addition to creating it, finance it.

With this in mind, we represent this issue with two practical examples of independent artists who make art their livelihood, whether economic, social, emotional, political, or therapeutic: Lundis, from Land Art, and Gil Leros, from Graffitti.

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