---
title: "Street art"
description: "Imagery made in public space outside official channels (wheat-pastes, stencils, stickers), rooted in graffiti culture but aimed at the passing public."
glossary: "https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary"
source: "https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/street-art"
---

# Street art

> Imagery made in public space outside official channels (wheat-pastes, stencils, stickers), rooted in graffiti culture but aimed at the passing public.

Glossary: https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary  
Source: https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/street-art

The sanctioned/unsanctioned line has blurred to near-invisibility:
institutions now commission artists who built their names without
permission, and "street art" as a label often signals a visual style more
than a legal status. What survives of the original distinction is audience:
street art talks to whoever walks by, where graffiti's lettering traditions
carry a conversation between writers.

For documentation, impermanence is the defining fact. Street art is made to
weather, be painted over, or disappear with the building, so the photograph
and the record often outlive the work. That makes mapping and archiving
this material feel less like administration and more like preservation.

Related terms: [Graffiti](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/graffiti), [Mural](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/mural), [Legal wall](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/legal-wall), [Mural festival](https://www.civiccollection.com/glossary/mural-festival)

## Mentioned in

- [How to Document Public Art When You Don't Know the Artist](https://www.civiccollection.com/blog/how-to-document-public-art-when-you-don-t-know-the-artist)