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Art in the Streets

So often we think about art and culture in their institutionalized, intellectual states, when in reality, so much is born on the street. The history of street art tells a story of the people’s voice. But today, it has become increasingly complicated; street art can be commodified and commercialized. It can be as much a thing of high art as anti-culture. This beautifully powerful and complicated history of street art and graffiti is what was so comprehensively addressed in the 2011 exhibition, Art in The Streets, at Los Angeles’ Museum of Contemporary Art .

This exhibit was the first of its magnitude in America to survey street art. Featuring over 100 artists from more than 20 cities, Art in The Streets was able to so extensively trace the artform to its roots as well as its world wide popularization. The show is curated mainly as a timeline of the movements that took place within street art, featuring a wide variety of the artists who influenced it along the way. In addition to this, the museum featured original works created for the exhibition including a sort of 'show within the show' by Banksy.

After the exhibition’s record-breaking success at LA’s Museum of Contemporary Art, artinthestreets.org was launched in effort to immortalize this legendary overview of street art in recent history. The website artfully documents the show itself, as well as the information and groundbreaking works that were a part of it. With a map, artist index, and photo gallery, artinthestreets.org offers an understanding of the timeline of street art and biographies of some of its most important artists who brought it to life.

As the world rapidy adapts to the current state and streets are no longer crowded with pedestrians, revisiting this 2011 overview of street art proves to remain entertaining and important as our societies, arts, and cities continue to change like never before.

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