STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

Street Artists in Europe
• democratisation of culture. Because they occupy public spaces, are open to passers-by
and can take place in areas that are isolated or have poor facilities, street arts help to
widen public access to culture;
• development of public awareness. Street arts mobilise the local population and help
create or strengthen bonds between local residents;
• external influence, particularly the image of the town. Street arts are a way for towns to
communicate and they help stimulate the local economy.
3.2.2. Cultural needs
• the need to celebrate: street artists set great store by conviviality and transformation.
Festivals are not simply an occasion for having fun, they are also a way of revealing the
hidden faces of day-to-day reality;
• the need for contact: street artists try to establish a close relationship with the audience.
Participating in a street show together reduces the ‘intimidating gap’, whether it is
between the public and the art form or between different communities;
• the need for free expression: street artists feel that everyone should be free to express
themselves creatively without being hidebound by academic rules, institutional
assessment criteria or market forces;
• the need to believe in myths: street artists aim to reinvent myths for contemporary
society, in which they have been almost completely destroyed, particularly in the west 128 .
3.2.3. Solidarity and militancy
In the light of these last values, relationships between members of a company rely more on
friendship and companionship than on the rules dictated by employment regulations or
organisation charts. The collective is ‘a group of artists’ who reject the idea of stardom or
individualism, a kind of alternative ‘niche’ in a world corrupted by individualism, a hub of
resistance against the dominant model of the market economy.
The choice of a collective is also dictated by the fact that they work in urban settings. Troupes
such as Royal de Luxe, Générik Vapeur, Ilotopie and the Spanish Fura des Baus and Els
Comedians, founder members of the street arts movement, have opted to be collectives because
they had to group together as artists to perform in public spaces and really stir them up.
Solidarity is expressed in the relationships between members of a company and between
companies. Within the company, solidarity helps individuals deal with the ups and downs of
daily life and with the financial insecurity that threatens the survival of the company. Members
of a company are always ready to invest their own assets or forego payment to enable the
company to survive. Solidarity between companies is also expressed through mutual support:
they lend equipment or tools, help each other without payment in setting up scenery or
providing rehearsal premises. Such solidarity is only possible if the individual members agree 129
on certain principles and unspoken rules. It is such agreement that creates the ‘spirit’ of street
arts, so often cited in protest against the market forces or official rules that govern the private
sector and the subsidised theatre.
128 Dapporto, Elena, Ressources et limites dans une perspective de développement, op. cit.
129 Boltanski L., Thévenot L., De la justification, les économies de la grandeur, Gallimard, Paris, 1991.
107
PE 375.307