Graffiti movement, born as a result of an effort of the youth, who felt themselves socially excluded and alone, to show their existence and identities during the 1960s, expanded its scope owing to street based artists such as Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat entering to the galleries, and transformed into an artistic manner of expression having aesthetic concerns by adopting a more inclusive definition ‘street art’. During this transformation of street art,street artists experimented with various methods from many different disciplines and hence created works in a wide range of varieties in terms of plastic and artistic values. Among these disciplines, printmakinghastaken its own place in street artas a discipline thatdeeply influenced street artists.Printmaking has fascinated street artists and become a part of their production process, not only with its philosophy sharing common grounds with street art and advantages in terms of its tecnical practices but also its unique plastic and linear values.Thanks to the opportunities of printmaking, street art has succeeded creating a tremendous impression worldwide, and even positioned itself into today’s greatest museums/gallery halls. This article aims to show how and in what way printmaking has influenced street art being in a transformation since the 1960s, and to put an emphasis on theimportance of printmaking on today’s street art.
Key Words: Printmaking, Street Art, Graffiti, Stencil, Serigraphy