Does art have to improve the world?

Introduction

In my previous blogs, I searched for the meaning of ‘hybrid viewing’ and how to apply it to artistic expressions. I wanted to find a path through it and truly understand it, but along the way, my critical intuition resurfaced—particularly regarding the restrictive structures within the Dutch art world.

Autonomous?

For a long time, major museums offered virtually no space for artists from African, Caribbean, and Surinamese cultures, or the subcultures within our society. Today, I do see a shift, as exhibitions are more frequently dedicated to them. But what is the underlying intention? I am not the only one asking this: within cultural critical studies, it has long been pointed out (time and again) that large institutions tend to yield to exhibiting work from subcultures and Afro-Caribbean or Surinamese artists only when social pressure becomes too immense, or when an exhibition serves as a safe, exotic crowd-pleaser.

This makes me question the risk of this art once again being forced into a Western, ‘approved’ format just to satisfy the diversity goals and benchmarks of the institution.

Improving the world?

I plan to visit the street art festival organized by ALL CAPS, which will take over the Lombardijen district in Rotterdam from September 6 to 13, 2026. The organization, rooted in the independent hip-hop platform Hiphop In Je Smoel, places a provocative question at the heart of its program: “Can street art improve the world?”. When looking at the funding of such large-scale festivals, I notice that the local government (the institution) provides substantial subsidies.

The policy objective is often clear: utilizing art as a tool for city marketing and urban renewal in vulnerable neighborhoods—at least, that is how the municipality of Rotterdam frames it. But this is where the shoe pinches for me. By doing this, isn’t the local government once again demanding that artists fulfill a social or moral duty just to be validated?

Must a muralist in Rotterdam-Lombardijen necessarily cheer up the neighborhood or fix the world, or can the artwork simply exist as an autonomous, layered aesthetic form?

Jean-Michel Basquiat

To better comprehend this tension, I thought back to an exhibition I visited a few years ago at the SCHUNCK museum in Heerlen: Basquiat – The Artist and His New York Scene. The exhibition showcased the raw subculture of Jean-Michel Basquiat’s early days, the era when he left witty and cryptic messages as a graffiti writer on the walls of Soho and the East Village under the pseudonym SAMO©. The © symbol was a satirical and ironic joke to him. He wanted it to feel like a commercial brand or logo (like Pepsi), mockingly targeting the consumer society and the art world itself. SAMO stood for ‘Same Old Shit’. By adding a copyright sign, he gave his poetic street texts an official, almost corporate look.

Breakthrough

He made the definitive transition from street graffiti to professional studio art between 1980 and 1981. Within a single year, he transformed from a street artist into a global art sensation. In 1980, he abandoned the ‘SAMO©’ tag, painted ‘SAMO© IS DEAD’ all over the walls of Manhattan, and focused entirely on canvas painting.

In 1980, he participated in The Times Square Show.  His raw, expressionist paintings on found objects (such as old doors and windows) instantly caught the attention of major art critics. Gallery owner Annina Nosei provided him with a studio space, canvases, and paint.

By 1981, his first major solo exhibition opened and completely sold out immediately, turning him into an instant, wealthy global star at just 21 years old.

Heerlen

SCHUNCK’s choice to highlight the New York East Village  in Heerlen was fascinating, because post-industrial Heerlen formed a striking parallel with that scene. Following the closure of the coal mines in the 1970s, Heerlen entered an economic freefall marked by high unemployment and social struggles.

Just like New York, this marginalized space provided the perfect, hybrid breeding ground for a creative subculture, using street art as an art form that connects, surprises, and amazes. The streetart initiative began in 2013, and by 2023, the city boasted 75 large and small murals. In Heerlen too, local and provincial authorities were heavily involved.

Jean-Michel Basquiat at Galerie Delta in Rotterdam

The established Dutch art order was blind to the new codes of the street at the time. When Galerie Delta in Rotterdam first brought Basquiat to the Netherlands in 1982, only about 50 people showed up to the exhibition.

Today, those exact same works are traded for millions by the global elite. Prices for Jean-Michel Basquiat’s work range from a few million to over 110 million dollars. Back then, the raw street culture was far more visionary than ‘the institution’ and the art world that only embraced it much later.

JR

Another artist who started on the streets is the French artist JR. He began in 1999 as a sixteen-year-old writing graffiti in the suburbs of Paris, far outside the view of the art establishment.

By pure chance, he found a camera in the Paris metro and discovered photography. He began photographing his friends while they were painting graffiti.

Because he could not or did not want to show his photographs in traditional galleries, he brought them back to the streets. He printed his images cheaply on paper, cut them out, and pasted them onto walls using wheat paste. He framed the photos with a thick layer of black spray paint, making them look like framed paintings in public spaces.

His major breakthrough occurred during the 2005 civil unrest in the French banlieues. He captured intimate, striking close-up portraits of the local youths using a 28mm wide-angle lens, making their faces appear intensely close and expressive.

He illegally pasted these monumental portraits across the wealthiest districts of Paris under the title Portrait d’une Génération. By doing so, he replaced frightening media stereotypes with human faces, permanently cementing his world-famous signature style of giant photo fly postings. He has grown into one of the most influential and famous contemporary artists in the world, holding a status comparable to Banksy. He describes himself as an urban activart (street painter) and is globally renowned for his massive black-and-white portraits in iconic locations.

Changing the world?

In 2011, he won the TED Prize  of $100,000 for his vision to change the world through art. This sparked the launch of his Inside Out Project, which has enabled over 500,000 people across 150 countries to paste their own giant portraits in public spaces. In 2018,  Time Magazine officially named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

JR within the walls of the Institution

Today, his work hangs inside the world’s grandest museums (such as MoMA in New York and Centre Pompidou  in Paris), while he simultaneously continues to illegally paste posters in favelas and conflict zones.

Together with a friend, I visited the impressive JR exhibition at the Groninger Museum.  I remember how deeply moved we were by the impact of his work on the residents of slums and marginalized neighborhoods.

By pasting larger-than-life portraits of them onto their own walls, he forced the world to look at their gaze.

The True Lesson

The true lesson that street art teaches the art scene is that art does not change the world by conforming to comfortable, subsidized expectations and institutional demands. It changes the world because it reclaims public space and confronts the viewer with codes and narratives that were never designed for the comfort of the traditional elite. Street art reveals reality!

Grassroots Courage

In practice, platforms operating ‘from below’—such as the streetwear brands Patta and Daily Paper, or local Rotterdam initiatives like Galerie NoirNoir and ALL CAPS —often chart a braver and more independent course than large museums. They do not wait for institutional validation or the whims of the art elite.

This connects back to my previous blog, where I explored the vision of Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina. He described how vital it is for Africa to spark transformation from the ground up (Pan-Africanism from below).

In the Netherlands, Patta and Daily Paper utilize the commercial market to secure economic and artistic independence. Galerie Noir Noir at Rotterdam Alexander station autonomously build a platform for young, unknown artists who still all too often fall through the cracks of the mainstream, white art establishment.

When is something art?

The institutions and the art elite dictate whether something qualifies as art or not. But when is something art? The street and the diaspora show us that art does not merely come into existence when it is placed within a quiet, institutional hall. Art is the autonomous appropriation of form, aesthetics, and space to tell one’s own story.

Breaking the rigid frames

My search for hybrid viewing brought me to the realization that dismantling these rigid societal frameworks requires two distinct, yet equally vital strategies.

The Route of Autonomy: Building an independent ecosystem entirely outside the walls of the established order. Rooted in the community, loyal to its own codes, and fueled by the street or the market.

The Route from Within: The ‘join them to beat them’ strategy. Securing a foothold and infiltrating the walls of institutions like museums and governments to transform the establishment from within.

Art historian and curator Charl Landvreugd chose this path by entering the gates of the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. It is an effort to permanently alter the structures of the art world from the inside out, reflecting the ‘heavy intellectual lifting’ described by Cameroonian philosopher Achille Mbembe.

Conclusion

As an older spectator, I am fortunate that I no longer have to choose which route is the correct one. In my view, both fronts are indispensable. I am glad that I can let it go, knowing that there are younger, highly driven, idealistic artists, art historians, curators, and gallery owners who still pour their passion into launching initiatives to make the world a little better. Art undoubtedly plays a part in that.

Johanna