Quand les murs de béton muets se transforment en un carnaval de couleur

Abstract

This paper develops a pragmatist definition of street art acknowledging its essential subversiveness, while drawing implications at the level of street art’s political and social function. By developing an insight from Irvine (2012), the paper argues that street artworks turn inside out accepted norms of visibility in public spaces. Street artists challenge those norms by deploying carnivalesque strategies such as irony and misappropriation (Scott 1990). In this sense, street art is art intrinsically challenging dominant hierarchies of visibility through the use of carnivalesque strategies. By opposing advertising’s dominion over the city walls, they reclaim – one street at a time – the possibility of expressing themselves in public for those generally excluded.

Keywords

• street art
• advertising
• art
• politics
• Bakhtin
• carnival