Street Art in Melbourne

Street Art In Melbourne

Melbourne, the capital of Victoria and second largest city in Australia, has gained international notoriety for its diverse range of street art and associated subcultures. Throughout the 1970s and 80s much of the city's disaffected youth were influenced by the graffiti of New York which subsequently became popular in Melbourne's inner suburbs and along suburban railway and tram lines. Melbourne was one of, perhaps the first, major city to embrace stencil art, leading to the naming of Melbourne as the "Stencil Graffiti Capital" and increasing public awareness of the concept of street art. The first stencil festival in the world was held in Melbourne in 2004 which featured the work of many major international artists.

Around the turn of the 21st century, other forms of street art began to appear in Melbourne including woodblocking, sticker art, poster art, wheatpasting, graphs, various forms of street installations and reverse graffiti. Tags are becoming increasingly less popular as the public and local councils alike view street art as an art form and tagging as vandalism. A strong sense of community ownership and DIY ethic exists amongst street artists in Melbourne, many of whom endeavour for the progression of society through awareness created in part by their work.

Many galleries in the City Centre and inner suburbs have started to exhibit street art. Prominent Melbourne street artists were featured in Space Invaders, a 2010 exhibition of street art held at the National Gallery of Australia in Canberra. Hosier Lane is Melbourne's most famous laneway for street art, however there are many other laneways in the inner city that have a plethora of street art.

Prominent international street artists such as Banksy (UK), ABOVE (USA), Fafi (France), D*FACE (UK), Logan Hicks, Revok (USA) and Invader (France) have contributed work to Melbourne's streets along with visitors from all over the world, most prominently Germany, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom and New Zealand.

Melbourne's street art scene was explored in the 2005 documentary RASH.