Street art assemblages

ABSTRACT

This discussion paper explores street art from the point of view of assemblages: What different elements and artefacts converge to give meaning and politics to art works? How do we understand the interactions of artworks, streets, viewers, politics, and discourse that render a work of art a happening rather than an object? Processes of artification depend on material, contextual and symbolic relations that bring together style, place, artists, viewers, city tours and city ordinances into a semiotic assemblage of art in the street. To arrive at a critical understanding of street art, we need to avoid assumptions about transgression, complicity, gentrification, or commodification, and focus instead on assemblages of art, viewers, and economic, political, and urban interests in specific locations. The question is how different elements – ownership and rights to space, capitalist expansion and appropriation, rebellion, and transgression – become entangled in semiotic assemblages that enable us to see the interactions of street art dynamics.

KEYWORDS:

• Assemblage
• entanglement
• Belleville

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 The term ‘quartier’ does not translate easily across languages and cities – in Australia all areas (inner and outer) of the city are suburbs; in the US, suburbs are usually wealthier and contrasted with inner city poverty; while in Paris, the suburbs – ‘faubourgs’ or ‘banlieues’ – are the poorer outer city regions contrasted with the inner-city quartiers (districts) and arrondissements of the city itself.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Alastair Pennycook

Alastair Pennycook is Professor Emeritus at the University of Technology Sydney and Research Professor at the MultiLing Centre at the University of Oslo. His most recent books include Innovations and Challenges in Applied Linguistics from the Global South (with Sinfree Makoni) and Critical Applied Linguistics: A Critical Reintroduction.