COURSE SYLLABUS
2016/17, AUTUMN TERM
Course code: AN32006BA; AN5401OMA
Instructor: Gabriella Moise
Course title: The Poetics and Politics of Street
Art
Type: 3rd year BA course, 3 credits
Time and place: Wed 6.00-7.40 p.m.; Rm
54
Office hours: Wed 1.00-2.00 p.m.,
Thurs 10.00-11.00 a.m.; Rm. 116/4
Email: [email protected]
Course description:
The course would like to introduce street art in its artistic, aesthetic, social, and political potentials
and functions. Street art as un urban (sub)cultural phenomenon is the means of socio-political,
socio-cultural criticism and resistance in general; since the late 20th century it has become the voice
of the silenced fluctuating between being occasionally accepted as authorized or at least tolerated,
yet mostly as an illegal and penalized form of art. The course intends to touch upon the art
historical precursors of street art from antiquity (Greek wall inscriptions, Pompeii’s graffiti art), to
the 21st century when street art even enters the gallery and museum. The course also aims at
introducing street art’s affiliation with avant-garde and neo-avant-garde artistic tendencies: the
early 20th century, as well as the 1950s-60s propaganda and poster art, Pollock’s dripping
technique, the Situationists, Pop Art overtones, by which street art can strengthen its
appropriational capacities and its power in performing activism. Besides introducing iconic
representatives of street art like Blek Le Rat (Xavier Prou, considered as the father of stencil art),
Banksy (Bristol-born, by now, world famous and in a way institutionalized artist) or King Robbo
(John Robertson), the seminar evaluates on the very medium of street art, namely, the streets and
walls, as signifying means, to shed light on the politically, ideologically, culturally charged urban
spaces, and the way underground artistic initiatives can, firstly, appropriate these spaces, and,
additionally, subvert the inscribed meanings and patterns of social interactions. The course situates
street art in a wider artistic and cultural context to highlight its political and social commitment,
through which the very concept of art can also be “democratized.”
Course Requirements:
 Class attendance: no more than three missed classes can be tolerated.
 Response papers: students are expected to read the assigned texts for each class as this
is the basis of classroom participation, and it also contributes to the final grade. Hence,
students are expected to write short (app. 150-200 words) so called response papers based on
content-targeted question(s). The response papers are supposed to be sent to the instructor
prior to the time of the class (ideally, Monday midnight) via mail. It can be the text of the
email message, no separate file is necessary to be attached to the mail.
 Seminar project: A presentation of a chosen street art piece, preferably from your own
immediate socio-cultural environment, documented by you. Ideally the presentations would
introduce a wider segment of Hungarian or even international street art. The point is that you

have to be able to introduce and analyse the particular work in the theoretical context we
covered during the course, either through several aspects (if applicable) or by one single
perspective. I am also open to accept, for instance, interviews with street artists if you happen
to know someone or if they you curious enough to search for some representatives. The
presentation (depending on the size of the group) should not be longer than ten minutes. If
you could not find any street art works around the place you live you can search for some on
the net, which, however, must be relevant for the student’s own social, cultural, etc.
environment.
End-term test: objective test concerning all the previously covered material. Failure of
coming to class at the time of the end-term test results in failure of the end-term, hence
failure of the course, too. There is no possibility for re-scheduling unless the student has a
serious reason for that e.g. being hospitalized.
Course components Percentage Grades
Response papers
End-term test
Seminar Project
Participation
Total
10%
40%
35%
15%
100%
87-100%
75-86%
63-74%
51-62%
0-50 %
5
4
3
2
1
Week Date Assignment
1
21
Orientation
Sept
2
28
(Art) historical overview: street art’s art historical precursors
Sept Lewisohn, Cedar. “Street Art or Graffiti?” Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution.
London: Tate Publishing, 2008. 15-25.
3
5 Oct What is what in the urban art scene: Graffiti-Street Art-Tagging“Writing”
Riggle, Nicholas Alden. “Street Art: The Transfiguration of the Commonplaces.”
The Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism 68:3 (2010): 243-257.
4
12
Art and politics: the socially and politically engaged art
Oct Rancière, Jacques. “The Distribution of the Sensible: Politics and Aesthetics.” The
Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. London: Continuum, 2006. 719.
5
19
Art and space: artistic practices in external spaces
Oct Rendell, Jane. “Space, Place, and Site in Critical Spatial Arts Practice.” The Practice
of Public Art. Ed. Cameron Cartiere and Shelly Willis. Abingdon: Routledge,
2008. 33-55.
6
26
Street art as a form of resistance
Oct Millner, Jacqueline. “Visual poetics: The critical impulse in street art.”
International Journal of the Arts in Society 4. 3 (2009): 303-319.
7
8
2
Nov
09
Nov
9
16
Nov
10
23
Nov
11
30
Nov
12
7
Dec
14
Dec
21
Dec
13
14
CONSULTATION WEEK
No class!
Introducing Blek Le Rat, Dan Witz, and others
Lewisohn, Cedar. “Global-Style Graffiti, Local-Style Street Art.” Street Art: The
Graffiti Revolution. London: Tate Publishing, 2008. 63-78.
The spatial context: walls and streets as politicized space
Guest lecturer: Malou Kürpick
(reading material TBA) + Millner, Jacqueline. “Visual poetics: The critical
impulse in street art”
Introducing Banksy
Paul Gough, “Existencillism: Banksy and the Stencil as Radical Graphic Form.”
Drawing: Research, Theory, Practice1. 1 (2016): 97-117.
Street art on the screen
Banksy’s Exit through the Gift Shop (2010)
Discussing the film
END-TERM
NO CLASS!
(due to the instructor’s official engagement)
Seminar project presentations