“Across the country, cities large and small are looking a little more colorful lately” – especially lately it seems, that mural art is getting more and more fashionable. But what is the cause for that? What provokes artists to get out of the box and to take over walls and architecture, turning them into a canvas in order to create huge public artworks?
In my research I want to investigate the origins of this movement – its meaning and impact on society in the past, present and future. By looking into the beginnings of wall art and its primary role as an expressional tool for freedom, social activism and propaganda – I want to get an understanding of how the act of muraling is connected to social engagement or expressing religious and political beliefs.
Besides its power to act as a voice for specific communities or topics, I also want to dive into its purpose of shaping the cityscape, giving the ability to rehumanize streets by integrating art into everyday life.
I want to further explore how those artworks are made and what skills, techniques and experiences are needed to complete such a project – I want to understand the motivation of street artists and there process, starting from scratch, depicting there vision on a whole new level – thinking on a larger scale.
Reference:
- Hein, Hilde (1996): “What Is Public Art?: Time, Place, and Meaning”. URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/431675
- Kordic, Angie (2015): „Mural. The History and The Meaning“. URL: https://www.widewalls.ch/what-is-a-mural-the-history-and-meaning/
- Marschall, Sabine: “A Critical Investigation into the Impact of Community Mural Art”. URL: http://pdfproc.lib.msu.edu/?file=/DMC/African%20Journals/pdfs/transformation/tran040/tran040004.pdf
- Parolek, Dan (2014): “The Power of Public Art: How Murals Beautify Cities and Build Communities”. URL: https://opticosdesign.com/blog/the-power-of-public-art-murals/
- Vasallo, Eric A. (2015): “The Evolution of Street Art”. URL: https://medium.com/@Eric__INK/bill-hillman-s-bini-faces-san-franciscothe-evolution-of-street-art-63b3948d6022
