Radio Juxtapoz, ep 072: When does Street Art become Cultural Appropriation?
It's hard not to find a bit of pop-cultural appropriation in the roots of street art. There has always been artists who take from Disney, Hollywood, politics, and remix it into stencil art, wheat-pastes and murals. But there has been a trend over the last decade, as Big Muralism has become the trend, where we have begun to toe the line toward cultural appropriation in ways that have become insensitive and uneducated. Predominantly, we see this in depictions of Asian woman and culture, where Geishas pop-up in far away cities without context and often over-sexualized by a male artist.