Street Art Culture in the Context of Urban Environment

Introduction . The phenomenon of mass culture is manifested in traditional and experimental forms of public visual statement. In the context of an urban environment, it is defined as street art. The peculiarities of this phenomenon form a specific aesthetics that significantly affects the context of architectural objects, the image of the city and its historical tradition. Defining this direction of contemporary art as something new that affects a person’s feelings and way of thinking, we classify it as a form of public communication and examine the attitude of city residents to modern street art. Their perception of modern art objects that are not tied to the aesthetic norm has been little studied. The free intervention of urban creativity in the human environment deals with issues of cultural and ethical boundaries. The object of the study is street art. The subject is the perception of street art by different segments of the population. The purpose of the study is to identify areas of potential responsibility of a street artist to the target audience, the population of the city. The objectives are to study the cultural demand of urban residents for the formation of a number of restrictions and freedoms of street art authors. Materials and Methods . The study applied analytical and empirical methods. The analytical method included familiarization and analysis of the scientific literature on the topic under study. The empirical component is presented by the statistical survey of the population of Rostov-on-Don in the form of a digital questionnaire. Research stages: to study the history and current trends of this direction of contemporary art; to identify popular compositional and thematic preferences of artists, the most common stylistic decisions in street art; to identify the features of the perception of street art by residents of the city using a survey-questionnaire on the topic of research. Results . Street art is considered as a technique for a comprehensive solution to the design problems of the urban environment through the synthesis of forms of artistic expressiveness and modern technologies, perceived by residents of the city as part of their life and daily routine. Most respondents understand the artistic value of street art works, consider this direction to be art. In this regard, their special attention is aimed at assessing the skill of performing images or small forms. At the same time, propaganda and agitation in the thematic component of art objects are very inappropriate, according to the townspeople. The study revealed an unobvious fact that the overwhelming majority of residents of the southern capital consider it necessary to clearly declare a number of mandatory requirements for the creator of a street art object, in particular, for the content, artistic component and placement of an art object in a public place. Discussion and Conclusion . The cultural phenomenon of street art is highlighted in its historical development and in the context of the viewer’s perception of this phenomenon as part of their everyday life, which places special requirements on the aesthetics and functionality of works of street art. As the study showed, residents of the city consider it necessary to create an initiative group of representatives of not only professional communities, but also the local population, empowered to form restrictive regulations for street art authors while preparing for the festival of street culture.