Color on the Concrete: The Story of Street Art
For thousands of years, people have created art in outdoor spaces. Long ago, ancient cultures painted colorful murals on the walls of civic and religious buildings. However, during the late twentieth century, a brand-new art form began appearing in bustling cities. In New York City during the 1970s and 1980s, energetic young artists started painting on subway cars, brick walls, and empty wooden fences. Instead of showing their work inside quiet museums, they turned the entire city into an open gallery. This vibrant movement became known as Street Art.
Street Art grew from two important traditions: modern graffiti and community murals. Graffiti writers originally focused on quick spray-painted signatures called tags and fancy bubble letters on subway trains. Over time, other creators began adding pictures of people, humorous cartoons, and thoughtful messages about neighborhood life. They also drew inspiration from the Mexican Mural Movement of the early twentieth century, in which artists painted massive public walls to celebrate cultural history. Like the Pop Art movement of the 1960s, Street Art challenged traditional ideas about who could be an artist and who should get to enjoy art.
- murals:
- Large artworks painted directly onto a wall or ceiling.
- graffiti:
- Words or drawings painted, written, or sprayed onto walls and public surfaces.
- tags:
- Quick, stylized signatures written by graffiti artists to mark their identity.
- stencil:
- A cutout sheet of cardstock or plastic used to spray or paint a specific design quickly.
- aerosol:
- A substance, like paint, sealed in a can under pressure and released as a fine spray.
- vandalism:
- The act of deliberately damaging, defacing, or destroying property without permission.
- temporary:
- Lasting or meant to last for only a limited period of time rather than forever.
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Preview questions from this passageShowHide
- 1Where did the modern Street Art movement begin during the 1970s and 1980s?
- 2What two major traditions combined to help create Street Art?
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About this explanatory article passage for Upper Elementary
“Color on the Concrete: The Story of Street Art” is a explanatory article reading passage about Street Art, written for Upper Elementary. It takes about 4 minutes to read (549 words) and comes with an interactive quiz and a printable worksheet with comprehension questions and an answer key.