Limiting law: art in the street and street in the art

Conventional legal responses to street art have tended to characterize it as a problem that is best dealt with through criminal law sanctions. This is not necessarily a problem for street artists who have been keen to situate understandings of their work outside of the law. But attitudes are changing. Street art is increasingly seen as having commercial value, enhancing the cityscape, creating new local art markets, attracting tourists, and contributing to the gentrification of an area with the result that conventional ways of conceiving of street art have begun to pose new challenges to concepts of crime and property. Drawing on an observational study in London, this article proposes a new theorization of the legal problems posed by street art that pays close attention to the sensual experience of encountering it in the city and to street art as performance rather than artefact.