Memories of these works were a major influence on French pioneer street artist Blek le Rat. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini was known for using stencils to push his propaganda across the country. In fact, even political leaders we don’t necessarily associate with progressive regimes have done so. Political leaders endorsing street art is not an entirely contemporary phenomenon.

Recently, at the end of 2019, Fairey had a retrospective of his work spanning three decades at Over The Influence in Los Angeles, showcasing works that addressed campaign finance, the Women’s March, the March for Our Lives and more.įollowing the November 2015 terrorist attacks in Paris, the artist created a poster as a free download using his previous work Make Art, Not War (2015) but in the colours of the French flag, with the words, “Liberté, Egalité, Fraternité.” The work went viral with even French President Emmanuel Macron putting up a painting of it in his office.

With the art market today increasingly in love with street art in all its myriad forms such as graffiti, stencils, prints, murals, street installations, performative and video art, it is easy to forget that street art is often used as a political tool, wielded by all manner of personalities, ideologies and communities.Īlmost everyone is familiar with American artist Shepard Fairey’s Hope (2008), a poster of former US President Barack Obama which became a “viral piece of presidential iconography,” gaining parodies and even legal trouble for the artist.

Whether it is used to hold up a mirror to society or reiterate a specific message, street art is a potent political tool.ĭaniel Feral, The Feral Diagram: Graffiti and Street Art, 2011.

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