Abstract
Nepali street art is the culmination and transcendence of the gallery-based contemporary art scene in the country. Street art critically engages with a larger audience in a context it was younger artists who gave initial impetus to the formation of street art scene in Nepal. This chapter looks at Nepali street art as a social product that embodies the interplay between the personal, on the one hand, and the political, on the other hand, as well as the interplay between the local and the global. The chapter demonstrates these dynamics of street art by surveying selected street art projects and through interviews with the artists concerned. Meanwhile, the chapter also provides a contextual reading of the emergence and evolution of Nepali street art.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Notes
- 1.
The first Constituent Assembly formed in 2008 was dissolved unceremoniously in 2012. This indicates the extent of political chaos that pervaded the country during the period between 2008 and 2012. Read more at: https://www.economist.com/banyan/2012/05/28/into-the-wild
- 2.
Excerpt from the interview with Kailash Shrestha conducted in Kathmandu, 5 July 2017.
- 3.
Excerpt from the interview with Kiran Maharjan conducted in Lalitpur, 6 July 2017.
- 4.
Nepal was hit by a 7.8 magnitude earthquake in 25 April 2015 which took the lives of thousands of people and injured many more. More can be read at: https://www.pri.org/stories/2015-04-25/devastating-earthquake-leaves-more-thousand-dead-and-rising-nepal
- 5.
Excerpt from the interview with Rupesh Raj Sunuwar, 7 July 2017.
- 6.
Excerpt from the interview with Kailash Shrestha conducted in Kathmandu, 10 July 2017.
- 7.
Excerpt from the interview with Kailash Shrestha conducted in Kathmandu, 10 July 2017.
- 8.
A broad summary of Dr. KC’s demands and activism can read at: http://archive.nepalitimes.com/article/from-nepali-press/what-govinda-kc-wants,3869
- 9.
Excerpt from the interview with Dibyeshwor Gurung conducted in Lalitpur, 12 July 2017.
- 10.
‘Prasad’ is a Nepali term for devotional/religious offering in the form of edibles made to God during religious occasions. It may also be loosely understood as an embodiment of blessing from God.
- 11.
Excerpt from the interview with Kailash Shrestha conducted in Kathmandu, 10 July 2017.
- 12.
‘Karuwa’ is a Nepali term for a type of brass jug. Tansen city of Palpa district is known for its traditional brass jugs.
- 13.
Excerpt from the interview with Kailash Shrestha conducted in Kathmandu, 5 July 2017.
- 14.
Selected works of Artudio can be seen at: http://artudio.net/project/street-art/
Selected works of Sattya Media Arts Collective can be viewed at: https://www.facebook.com/KolorKathmandu/
Selected works of Artlab can be seen at: https://www.facebook.com/artlablife/
Selected works of Dibyeshwor Gurung can be viewed at: https://www.instagram.com/iamdib/
References
Alpaslan, Zeynep. 2012. Is Street Art a Crime? An Attempt at Examining Street Art Using Criminology. Advances in Applied Sociology 2 (1): 53–58.
Bangdel, Dina. 2017. Post-Earthquake Art Initiatives. In Breaking Views, ed. C. Brosius and S. Maharjun, 50–70. Kathmandu: Himal Books.
———. n.d. Glocalization of Art: A Nepali Context. Kathmandu: Lasanaa Publications.
Baral, Roshan Raj. 2014. Experiment with Education, Development and Politics: Interrogating Rup Chandra Bista’s Life. Nepali Journal of Contemporary Studies XIV (1–2): 43–70.
Becker, Howard S. 1982. Art Worlds. Berkeley: University of California Press.
Bennett, Tony, et al. 2010. Culture, Class, Distinction. Oxon: Routledge.
Bourdieu, Pierre. 1993. Sociology in Question. London: Sage Publications.
de la Fuente, Eduardo. 2007. The ‘New Sociology of Art’: Putting Art Back into Social Science Approaches to the Arts. Cultural Sociology 1 (3): 409–425.
Dewey, John. 1994. Art as Experience. In Art and Its Significance: An Anthology of Aesthetic Theory, ed. S.D. Ross, 204–220. Albany: State University of New York Press.
DiMaggio, Paul J. 1983. The Sociology of Art Comes of Age. Contemporary Sociology 12 (3): 272–274.
Gellner, David N. 1997. For Syncretism. The Position of Buddhism in Nepal and Japan Compared. Social Anthropology 5 (3): 277–291.
Gleaton, Kristina Marie. 2012. Power to the People: Street Art as an Agency for Change. Master’s Diss., Submitted to Faculty of the Graduate School, University of Minnesota, The US.
Gröndahl, Mia. 2012. Revolution Graffiti: Street Art of the New Egypt. Cairo: The American University in Cairo Press.
Irvine, Martin. 2012. The Work on the Street: Street Art and Visual Culture. In The Handbook of Visual Culture, ed. B. Sandywell and I. Heywood, 235–278. London/New York: Berg.
Kellner, Douglas. 2012. Theorizing Globalization. New Delhi: Critical Quest.
Kemal, Salim, and Ivan Glaskell. 2000. Contesting the Arts: Politics and Aesthetics. In Politics and Aesthetics in the Arts, ed. S. Kemal and I. Glaskell, 1–10. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Kunwar, Niranjan. 2014. Nepali Artists on Socio-political Dimensions on Art, July. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/niranjan-kunwar/nepali-artists-on-sociopo_b_5608648.html. Last Accessed on 30 July 2017.
Lewison, Cedar. 2008. Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution. London: Tate Publishing.
Mills, C. Wright. 2000. The Sociological Imagination. New York: Oxford University Press.
Molnár, Virág. 2011. Street Art and the Contemporary Urban Underground: Social Critique or Coolness as Commodity? https://nuclireflexiu.wikispaces.com/file/view/molnar_street_art_ces_2011.pdf. Last Accessed on 25 July 2017.
Papastergiadis, Nikos. 2010. Spatial Aesthetics, Art, Place, and the Everyday. Amsterdam: Institute of Network Cultures.
Perera, Sasanka. 2011. Artists Remember; Artists Narrate: Memory and Representation in Contemporary Sri Lankan Visual Arts. Colombo: Colombo Institute for the Advanced Study of Society and Culture/Theertha International Artists’ Collective.
Sengupta, Urmi. 2011. The Divided City? Squatters’ Struggle for Urban Space in Kathmandu. In Urban Navigations: Politics, Space and the City in South Asia, ed. J.S. Anjaria and C. McFarlane, 105–137. New Delhi: Routledge.
Subedi, Abhi. 1995. Nepali Art: Nepali Utopia. Contributions to Nepalese Studies 22 (2): 113–130.
Thapa, Rabi. 2014. Whose Art Is It Anyway? http://nepalitimes.com/article/Nepali-Times-Buzz/krishna-temple-wall-painting-kathmandu,1625. Last Accessed on 16 Nov 2017.
Turner, Caroline, and Jen Webb. 2016. Art and Human Rights: Contemporary Asian Contexts. Manchester: Manchester University Press.
Uprety, Sanjeev. 2010. Cultural Aesthetics of the Contemporary. Bodhi 4 (1): 100–110.
Waclawek, Anna. 2008. From Graffiti to the Street Art Movement: Negotiating Art Worlds, Urban Spaces, and Visual Culture, c. 1970 – 2008. Doctoral Diss., Submitted to The Department of Art History, Concordia University, Canada.
Webb, Jen. 2005. Art in a Globalised State. In Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific, ed. C. Turner, 30–43. Canberra: Pandanus Books.
Weerasinghe, Jagath. 2005. Contemporary Art in Sri Lanka. In Art and Social Change: Contemporary Art in Asia and the Pacific, ed. C. Turner, 180–195. Canberra: Pandanus Books.
Wolff, Janet. 1981. The Social Production of Art. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
Zangwill, Nick. 2002. Against the Sociology of Art. Philosophy of the Social Sciences 32 (2): 206–218.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 The Author(s)
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Gurung, B. (2019). Transcending and Subverting Boundaries: Understanding the Dynamics of Street Art Scene in Nepal. In: Perera, S., Pathak, D.N. (eds) Intersections of Contemporary Art, Anthropology and Art History in South Asia. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05852-4_9
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-05852-4_9
Published:
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-05851-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-05852-4
eBook Packages: Social SciencesSocial Sciences (R0)