STREET ARTISTS IN EUROPE - Fondazione Fitzcarraldo

1.6. Conclusions and problems raised
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Street Artists in Europe
Street arts contain an enormous polymorphic movement in which directors, actors, musicians,
dancers, plastic artists, production designers and video-makers all have the same concern:
inserting an artistic project into the heart of the public space, as close as possible to the
populations.
The writing of street shows is therefore based on new types of know-how under the combined
effect of a desire to get away from the conventional and the financial constraints the shows find
themselves faced with. An ongoing work of reflection is therefore based on the mixing of
languages and the variety of writings, the artistic choices expressed by “unexpected collages”.
Rather than making another reality come into being for the public, the question is one of
providing another view, of looking into this reality for what is not yet readable or is masked by
it.
There is a lack of academic research on a European scale on the aesthetics of street arts, research
that could draw their specificities. Every kind of creation needs to improve itself or to take an
objective look at its productions. Also, street arts sometimes suffer from the lack of knowledge
of the specific features of street forms: history, genealogy, creation processes – e. g. the cultural
consumption of street artists has not been the subject of any studies, performance modes, etc.
Few specific residencies or workshops are available to these artists: the access to writing
stipends and accompaniment programmes for creation professionals are not generalised.
Helping artists to develop their own aesthetics presupposes that they have access to the heritage
of street arts and the works, theoretical as well as technical, dedicated to these artistic forms.
Confrontation to other realities (mobility) is also a key element, we’ll develop this idea latter.
Lastly, as resource centres and video collections are still a rarity, street artists do not really have
the possibility of stepping back from and taking an objective look at the contemporary creation
in their field.
PE 375.307