STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

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Street Artists in Europe
events in public space were given considerable attention, and were generally the projects that
received the most public and media attention' 300 .
From the point of view of street arts ECOC programmes in the different cities covered entirely
different types of events. Opening events and large scale parades were (and are) the most visible
and most favourite forms of street art events: 'Over half of the cities cited their opening event,
usually involving some form of outdoor celebration, as being one of the most successful projects
in terms of public attention. These opening events generally consisted of an evening, day or
weekend of festivities and events that attracted large crowds (Brussels, Porto, Graz, Copenhagen
each recorded an attendance of over 100 000 people and Lille recorded an unexpected 600 000
people). Many respondents spoke of the opening event as one of the most memorable occasions
of the year where cities came to a standstill as people filled the streets' 301 .
Great parades attracted several tenths of hundreds of people. In that sense, street art obtained a
role in attracting crowds and as such communicating the event and the whole ECOC year
towards other cities and countries. For instance the Zinneke Parade in Brussels was attended, by
300.000 spectators.
The other typical form of street art is the transformation of public spaces and street objects of
the city through street art events or graphic arts… This has happened in Lille where the projects
entitled Metamorphoses had been willing to transform the public space and to apprehend
people’s perceptions on the old and new forms of spaces. In several cities, the whole proposal
for the one-year programme related to ECOC year was based on a conception relying public
space and culture. These programmes proposed to transform the general perception of the city
about its public and natural spaces through special cultural and art events. Such were the
programs relating culture-city and water: the river programme in Prague, or the
Waterprogramme on Rotterdam’s canals…
Street art obtained different emphasises in different ECOC cities. For instance, in Luxembourg
(1995) street art occupied and important place even if it was not the priority of the ECOC
programmes. Among others, works of Niki Saint-Phalle had been exposed in the street i order to
show contemporary art to citizens and people walking in the city 302 . Some cities where street
arts were of high importance during the programmes: Bruges (2002), Graz (2003), Lille (2004).
Cities where it had a less important role: Copenghagen (1996) or Salamanca (2002) 303 .
3. The city seen by street arts operators
This part of the study is based on the analysis of questionnaires and interviews conducted
towards the representatives of some important street art events all over in Europe.
Questionnaires had been distributed and forwarded to the author of this chapter by
HorsLesMurs, while interviews have been arranged directly by the first, in form of 20-30
minutes telephone conversations. All contacts had been released to the author by HorsLesMurs.
As questionnaires and interviews were based on the same guideline of questions proposed by the
author, all the responses reacted to almost similar questions. Therefore the analysis will refer to
the two sources in the same time, and will only mention their origin if there is a divergence
300
Palmer/RAE Associates, European Cities and Capitals of Culture, Study prepared for the European
Commission, Brussels, 2004.
301
Ibid.
302
Interview with Claude Frisoni, Luxembourg 1995.
303
Palmer, op.cit.
PE 375.307