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Disaffected minorities in the 1960s picked up on the idea of using art to promote social justice. During the Black Arts Movement of the 1960s, which witnessed a flurry of art production by African-American artists, predominantly-black communities in economically-destitute areas convened in grassroots movements to create public murals in acts of "guerrilla art" designed to challenge conventional ideas about ownership and rights. Chicago's "Wall of Respect," produced in 1969 and featuring a spread of African-American heroes, infused the South Side community with a sense of morale and empowerment at the same time that it promoted political activism on behalf of civil rights. The very act of creating the mural was an act of defiance, a "defacing" of property for a greater good, a conversion of that property into something more beautiful. Although the public works of the 1930s and 1940s under the New Deal were commissioned by the government and thus far from illegal, the principles undergirding their production were similar to those that fueled the creation of Black Arts Movement murals: the use of art to transform people's lives in a highly public manner.
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Some commentators criticize the movement of street art into museums, galleries, and other venues of "high culture" as a passing "fad." "Today's absurd prices of 'the people's art' and 'this breakthrough means of authentic expression' and 'commentary on popular culture with an investment value' will all come crashing down" (italics in original), contends Matt Gleason of The Daily Beast. But these critics overlook the rich history of street art when they dismiss it as little more than a fashion statement. True, it may only recently be achieving international acclaim and market success in elite domains, but street art has proven, despite its own claim to and reverence for its transitory nature, a lasting aesthetic form. Individual works may disappear, but new ones replace them. And the phenomenon does not appear to be going away any time soon.
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