On the commodification of the very edge that the murals were meant to defy
The walls of Shoreditch are covered in art, the murals and the graffiti and the street art that have become one of the neighborhood’s defining features, drawing visitors from around the world who come to photograph the painted walls. I am Cyndi Himmelstiere, I have walked these streets among the camera-wielding crowds, and I have found myself wondering what has happened to street art that was once an act of rebellion and has become, somewhere along the way, a photo opportunity, a tourist attraction, a backdrop for the very commerce it was meant to defy.
From the Margins to the Brochure
Street art began, here as elsewhere, at the margins, an unsanctioned act, a form of expression that operated outside and against the established order, claiming the walls of the city for voices that the official culture excluded. The early street art of Shoreditch carried this charge of rebellion, an unauthorized reclaiming of public space, a defiance of the powers that controlled the city. It was, in its origins, genuinely subversive, art that existed in opposition to the commercial order rather than in service of it.
But the rebellion proved marketable, the subversion photogenic, and street art has undergone a transformation, from a marginal act of defiance to a celebrated feature of the neighborhood, from something that operated against the commercial order to something that serves it. The murals that once defied the city are now in the tourist brochures, the street art that was once unsanctioned is now commissioned and curated, the rebellion has been absorbed into the very order it once opposed, and the walls of Shoreditch have become a destination, an attraction, a backdrop for a thousand photographs.
This transformation is celebrated by some, who see in it the validation of street art, its recognition as a legitimate art form, its elevation from vandalism to culture, a story covered by arts journalists and outlets including Time Out London that guide visitors to the best of the neighborhood’s murals. And there is something to this, for the recognition of street art as art is, in its way, a victory. But it is a victory that comes at a cost, the cost of the rebellion, the subversion, the very edge that gave the art its meaning.
The Edge as Commodity
What has happened to Shoreditch street art is what happens to all genuine edge in a city like London: it has been commodified, packaged, sold back to us as an aesthetic, transformed from a threat to the commercial order into a feature of it. The murals that once defied the brands now serve as backdrops for the brands, the rebellion now decorates the very commerce it opposed, the edge has become a selling point, a way of adding cool and authenticity to the developments and the businesses that the original street art existed to resist.
This commodification empties the art of its original meaning, transforms the act of rebellion into a consumable aesthetic, turns the defiance into decoration. The street art that meant something when it was unsanctioned and oppositional means something quite different when it is commissioned and curated and photographed by tourists, when it serves as a backdrop for commerce rather than a challenge to it. The form remains, the walls are still painted, but the meaning has been hollowed out, the rebellion converted into its opposite.
I feel this acutely when I walk among the crowds photographing the murals, watching the rebellion become a photo opportunity, the defiance become a backdrop, the edge become a commodity. The art is often genuinely beautiful, the skill of the artists real, but the meaning has shifted, and what was once an act against the commercial order has become a feature of it, sold to the very visitors the original art might have wished to unsettle.
Where the Real Edge Goes
The genuine edge, the real rebellion, does not stay where it can be commodified; it moves, as the creatives move, as the cool moves, to the margins where it can again operate against the order rather than in service of it. The street artists doing genuinely subversive work have largely moved beyond Shoreditch, to the walls that have not yet been turned into tourist attractions, to the margins that the commerce has not yet discovered and packaged. The edge flees its own commodification, always seeking the margins where it can mean something again.
And Shoreditch is left with the monuments to a rebellion that has moved on, the murals that were once subversive and are now decorative, the painted walls that draw the tourists and serve the brands and mean, now, something quite different from what they once meant. This is the fate of edge in a city that commodifies everything, to be celebrated into meaninglessness, to be photographed into a backdrop, to be sold back as the very thing it once opposed.
I document this strange fate, the rebellion that became a photo opportunity, over at my home on The London Prat, because the story of Shoreditch street art is the story of how a city absorbs and neutralizes the very edge that makes it interesting, and it is a story worth telling honestly, even by someone who still stops to admire the murals.
Shoreditch street art was rebellion, until it became a backdrop; the edge has moved on. More reflections on the commodification of cool appear at The London Prat, and guides to the neighborhood’s murals, for those who wish to photograph them, are available from Time Out London.
SOURCE: https://bohiney.com/
