Melbourne street art

Melbourne has become famous around the world for its diverse range of street art, after the birth of stencil art in Britain, Melbourne was one of if not, the first city outside the UK that embraced this art form and practically all of inner Melbourne hosts stencil art. However, many forms of street art are popular in Melbourne including; stencil art, woodblocking, sticker art, poster art, wheatpasting, graphs, various forms of street installations and reverse graffiti. Tags are becomming increasingly less popular as the public conciousness and local councils alike, view street art as an art form and tagging as vandalism. This has led to a mini-war between taggers and particularly, stencil artists, though this is strictly limited to artworks and no other forms of conflict. A strong sense of community ownership exists amongst street artists in Melbourne, who endeavour for the progression of society through awareness created in part by their work.

Locations

The main areas that street art can be found in Melbourne are;
* Fitzroy
* St Kilda
* Carlton
* Collingwood
* Northcote
* Brunswick
* Melbourne city centre

Many galleries in the central business district are now starting to exhibit stencil art and photos of stencil art. Melbourne's train lines are the main locations for graphs and tagging. Hoiser Lane is Melbournes most famous laneway for street art with many vistiors from around the world who have left their mark. Names such as Logan Hicks & Banksy can be seen there, visitors from Germany, Canada, USA & UK have also made their presence there. City Lights Gallery & Until Never Gallery are located there as well, both specializing in street influenced art work. Artists such as Fafi from France & local artist HAHA have exhibited there.

Terminology

* "Street Art" or "Post-Graffiti" - used by street artists to distinguish their art from graffiti or vandalism.
* "Taggers" - Those who place quick graffiti "tags" in discriminate places (trains, trucks, etc) or cause damage in the process (like scratching of internal fittings in trains)
* "Graphers" - Those who display their tag in an artful manner, like with a mural, displaying a high level of skill.
* "Graffiti" - Rarely used today except by those uneducated in street art culture, particularly in the media. Mostly used in a historic sense in reference to graffiti of the 1970's and 80's.

Events

* The first stencil art festival in the world was held in Melbourne in May 2006.
* A few video projection events have been held in Gertrude Street in Fitzroy.

ee Also

* Culture of Melbourne
* Street art
* Graffiti
* Public art
* Public space
* Community ownership
* RASH_(film)

External links

* [http://www.melbournestreetart.com/ online gallery of stencil, poster, sticker and graffiti art] .
* [http://www.melbournegraffiti.com/ another large online gallery] .
* [http://www.itravelnet.com/blog/2008/09/keith-haring-in-melbourne.html Keith Haring in Melbourne] .