STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

Street Artists in Europe
Any study of street arts must, therefore, take a Europe-wide approach to the question, as the
respondents to this survey certainly noted: ‘We wish to point out that the notions of street art
[...] have not been more precisely defined in the survey resulting in difficulties in pinpointing
the companies and individuals active in these fields and consequently any other information
linked to them, all the more so as it is a field that intertwines with various other expressions and
developments which define and understand themselves in different manners’ 159 .
1.5. The status of the artist
One final, major point, which highlights the interdependence between the status of the artist and
cultural policy, needs to be taken into consideration. The status of the artist varies from one
European country to another 160 . That means the various countries and cultures accept different
definitions of that professional sector. The French definition of a ‘professional company’ and, in
particular, a professional artist, refers mainly to the administrative system and the system of
unemployment benefits for intermittent workers. If such a worker can survive financially on his
art, he is eligible for the corresponding administrative status. In countries that do not have that
system for determining status, the transition from amateur to professional status is based on
other factors and the distinction is more blurred.
The French system of intermittent work seems to be a special case, although two other European
countries also stand out in that regard: Belgium and the Netherlands. Since July 2003 Belgian
artists may be regarded as employees if they work on commission. In the Netherlands, since a
law passed in 1999, artists may be paid employees for a maximum of four years over a total
period of ten years. In Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain, Sweden, Italy and Austria, artists
find it difficult to obtain unemployment benefit because they are not entitled to benefits if their
only work is as an artist… 161
Overall, the situation can be summarised as a general lack of job security for artists in Europe;
only a minority of them can survive solely from their work as artists whilst the remainder have
to rely on other employment too. The countries of northern Europe, however, seem more
concerned with the status of the artist than their southern counterparts 162 .
2. Comparative study of public policies on street arts
The years from 1960 to 1980 saw the emergence of street arts in Europe in very different
contexts: the return to democracy in Spain, the artistic and political protest movement in France,
the development of artistic creations and practices on the sidelines of the official Communist
institution in Poland, the reaction to the commercialisation of the art market in the United
Kingdom, etc. Overall, the 1990s were marked by the spectacular growth of the sector, in terms
of the number of companies, performances, festivals and attendance by a wide variety of
audiences 163 . Today, in face of that proliferation, we must look at the degree to which the
political and public authorities recognise the sector. Despite growing public enthusiasm, such
159 Reply to the survey by a member of the Directorate for cultural development and cultural policy, Ministry of
Culture of the Republic of Croatia (Zagreb, Croatia)
160 See the European Parliament study on: ‘The status of artists in the European Union’, produced by ERICarts,
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/expert/eStudies.do?language=EN.
161 See the article in Libération – 8 July 2003 – ‘l’Europe du spectacle éclatée: peu de pays ont un système
particulier pour les artistes et les techniciens’, p. 6.
162 Autissier, Anne-Marie, op. cit. p. 13.
163 See study by Floriane Gaber, Les publics des arts de la rue, EunetStar network, April 2005.
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