Graffiti, street art and the divergent synthesis of place valorisation in contemporary urbanism

What is the role and function of graffiti and street art in the context of larger contemporary urban transformations? In the course of the last fifteen years or so, graffiti art has received unprecedented attention from mainstream cultural institutions, ranging from local municipality arts services and grant schemes to major contemporary arts museums. At the same time, street art – or what is sometimes referred to as ‘post-graffiti’ (Manco 2002) – has moved closer than before to the contemporary art system. To various extents and not without contradictory or even paradoxical outcomes, both graffiti and street art have been increasingly associated with thrilling lifestyles, urban creativity, fashionable outfits and hip neighbourhoods. The value attributed to these expressions as well as the urban places where they occur has changed accordingly (e.g. Dickens 2010). Rather than merely value-neutral (invisible) or necessarily valuedetracting (supravisible) as before, now graffiti and even more pronouncedly street art can be value-bestowing (visible). Visibility means they have turned into recognisable and in some cases much sought-for items in the urban landscape. Yet, because visibility is never straightforwardly linked to value (Brighenti 2010a), some additional considerations are needed to make sense of the dynamic at stake.