"Street art is not a crime": Processes of politicization of culture in the City of Buenos Aires, Argentina

Abstract

In this paper I recover an ethnographic research developed with groups and organizations of artists from Buenos Aires and focus on a particular event: the intention of the local government to regulate the artistic activity in the public sphere that took place during 2018 and the mobilization in rejection that it activated, demanding the right to street artwork under the slogan “street art is not a crime”. I analyze how this process implied resignifications in the ways of thinking the social / political role of art and artists as well as the role of the State in relation to art and culture. These transformations that had been unfolding since previous years activated politicization processes of various actors in the cultural field in relation to demands for cultural rights, policies and legislation. I argue that the resistance that was unleashed in the face of the attempt to regularize / penalize street art must be analyzed in connection with this background of political-collective organization in the cultural field as well as with a resignification of the ways of conceptualizing the political potential of artistic practices, the independence / self-management and cultural rights.