Contemporary Murals in the Street and Urban Art Field: Critical Reflections between Preventive Conservation and Restoration of Public Art

Paola Mezzadri

doi:10.3390/heritage4030142

Abstract

This paper focuses on the presentation of some of the main critical reflections concerning the current debate about conservation and restoration of contemporary murals in the Street and Urban Art field. More and more, the operations thought of for this kind of wall paintings are connected to the concept of preventive conservation or some actions with the aim of reducing the future deterioration linked to the outdoor context. The idea of protecting urban and street murals arises from two principal issues: on one hand, the (not yet) official, but social, recognition of them as works of art and beloved icons in the communities—or better “testimonies which spread the values of civilization” (definition of Cultural Heritage) from the last decades of the XX century to nowadays—and, on the other hand, the necessity of finding a way to preserve their artistic messages in the ephemeral urban context. In fact, developing a correct plan for the conservation and restoration of these works of art located in the outdoor context needs to consider—more than ever—the strict relationship between their materials, their environment, and even their viewer. This fragile axiom is strictly linked to the law of the street, where all the decay processes are, often, unpredictable. At the moment, the ICR’s (The Istituto Centrale per il Restauro) research in this field is focused on a work in progress project to develop some trials and tests with innovative materials for their preservation and a common glossary to outline particular forms of damaging in murals often based on “plastic on a wall”. The final aim could be to define institutional guidelines for the preservation of urban and street contemporary mural paintings in a perspective of a “share for care” conservative program.

Highlights

The Lessical Definitions of Street Art, Urban Art, and Public Art in the International ScenarioIn the current debate, the definition of “Street art”— far from Post-Graffiti definition and from the Rigglerian one of 2010, where “An artwork is street art if, and only if, its material use of the street is internal to its meaning” [1]—is used in a generalized way by the critics and the art market to define a series of heterogeneous artistic manifestations, united by the desire for opposition to the prevailing cultural system and the choice to illegally perform one’s works [2]
The definition of “Street art”— far from Post-Graffiti definition and from the Rigglerian one of 2010, where “An artwork is street art if, and only if, its material use of the street is internal to its meaning” [1]—is used in a generalized way by the critics and the art market to define a series of heterogeneous artistic manifestations, united by the desire for opposition to the prevailing cultural system and the choice to illegally perform one’s works [2]
This definition certainly bends itself to repeated social negotiations, and it is improperly used to define artworks realized for the gallery circuit or performed on commission in the outdoor street context, which is, instead, the definition of “Urban art”: the latter can be referred to a branch of “Public

Summary

Introduction

The Lessical Definitions of Street Art, Urban Art, and Public Art in the International Scenario. The common and powerful act of all these citizens in the social recognition of street and urban art murals such as works of art, even before their normative recognition as part of the so-called “Cultural Heritage”, is already the real first step for the act of conservation of the latter Thanks to these preventive acts of care, public or even private institutions and associations in the field will be able to indicate fundamental communities’ opinions related to these issues to the Parliament or the competent authorities in order to develop a national law on this specific topic, answering the question, “what to preserve and who can decide it?”3.

Conservation

ICR Research in Contemporary Murals in the Street and Urban Art Field