Incredible Street Arts In India

By Author: Joshua Daniel
Total Articles: 5
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Huge hoardings of advertisements in the earlier 60 have shown the might of brands by splashes of colors and caught the attention of the large crowd. Then with the flex and banners of the precise paintings of the figures of politics, social importance and Bollywood stars dominated the streets. Images of Gods along the walkways prevented the general public urinating on the walls. Small business advertised by handmade indian paintings.

In the dark nights, the frustrated youths sparked out their emotions on the walls of cities by chalks. Later on, this way of expression gave birth to a new intuition to the present generation and street art got recognized. The act which was once regarded as vandalism is now evolving as an art – Grafitti or street art. INKZEN, NME, DIBS are just a few groups of street artists who took it as passion.

The next phase was the street art festivals and later on this structure along with government collaborations started working in the public spaces. Gradually the grafitti which once started ...
... to decline in Kolkata, its birth place is growing in other cities like Delhi and Mumbai. Many street art festivals are been organized in Delhi, Mumbai, Bengaluru, Kolkata. The first street art festival was organized in 2012 at Delhi by Astha Chauhan and Matteo Ferraresi and was called “Khirkee extension”.

It was a social experiment aimed to see if such an event can be existent without any funding. It was a big success as the like-minded artist came to the event on their own. After this event and with the rise of social media, these artists began to interact among their peers and more and more such events were organized. Organizations such as Delhi street art and Street art India foundation were formed soon after. These organizations with the association of central organizations, local municipal corporations and central initiative of Swach Baharat Abhyan were able to create images which are un-offensive and devoid of any strong meaning. The St+art is a non-profit organization which brought together a bunch of artists who add color and creativity to the barren walls of the streets of Delhi and gradually to the other cities of India. The idea was to broaden the meaning of art as not just beautiful paintings but also as expression of the masses which could make the thought process of the people to initiate a conversation.

The result was marvelous. Earlier the intellectuals were flocking through art museums and galleries and discussion was limited in area but now they have an open space and the group is not limited. Every passerby or the neighbor can see these arts and the publicity increased. For the local government, it was a win-win situation as the artist decorates the city walls and flyover columns with abstract ideas and expressions. A slum of an Indian city was painted by the artist before the visit of an international delegate. Local municipal corporations utilize this concept as a means to decorate the plain walls of the city.

“Wicked Broz'' is regarded as the first graffiti agency of India. It started on the walls of the campus of Singhad Institute of Technology'' in Lonavala. The initial startup was by the art on empty bottles and a pool parlor. Now it is receiving international accolades for their efforts of transforming the cities. One of the most talked activities by the “wicked broz” is the question mark campaign. Question marks were sprayed on around 500 potholes of Mumbai which appeared in the next day's newspaper and made the authorities eyes opened to one of the biggest social problems of Mumbai people.

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