UC San Diego

Street art is a term that has historically specified its site of display: the street.  With its increasing mainstream popularity, however, the term “street” has become abstracted from this definition which implies a direct reference to art that is literally painted on the streets to refer to a much broader movement, which is often marked by defining principles rather than a uniform medium or location.  This is not to say that street artists do not sometimes perform illegal actions, but that for them, street art is becoming more of an ideology rather than a particular aesthetic style. In other words, street art is not restricted to any medium, format, school, or technique; but instead, is centered around messages. Moral Vandals: Street Artists in the service of Change, examines the ways in which contemporary street artists have shifted their practices from traditional, vandalistic graffiti to more socially based practices in order to effect more immediate and direct change. These artists dispel the notion of street and graffiti artists as vandals to reveal an ethical dimension of street art practice. This dissertation moves beyond the examination of simple, territorial interventions such as wall painting to examine artists who work with global communities, sometimes much like aid workers, but in the service of their art practice, which has social and moral aims. The traditional ethos of this contemporary street art has evolved into a complex matrix encompassing the ethics of philanthropy, social work, and colonization. This necessarily gives rise to many ethical issues and repercussions. This dissertation aims to reorient the reputation of street art as an outsider practice and situate it as a global contemporary art practice that not only has very real linkages to the high art world, but also aims to better society.