Credit: Max Mertens

It all began with a urinal. Marcel Duchamp’s urinal. The French artist bought a urinal in 1917, signed it using the pseudonym “R. Crumb,” and submitted it to an art show. Readymade art was born.

Little did he know that his urinal would pave the way for hundreds of artists, in years to come. In 2004, Duchamp’s Fountain, as it became known, was selected as the most influential artwork of the 20th century by a panel of 500 British artists, collectors and dealers. “Beauty was besides the point,”said Nick Mount, speaking to an at-capacity room at the Bloor/Gladstone Library Monday night.

“That’s why it’s the most influential pick for our time.”

The Walrus fiction editor and University of Toronto professor traced the history of how street art started as a direct rebellion to what was happening in art galleries, the players involved and how the line between the two has blurred today. Modern graffiti began in New York in 1970s with artists using spray cans and stencils to “tag”buildings and subway stations. It would quickly grow to become associated with early 1980s hip-hop culture (see the music video for Grandmaster Flash’s “The Message” or Afrika Bambaataa & The Soulsonic Force’s “Planet Rock”).

It was the work of three men though–France’s Xavier Prou (aka Blek de Rat) and Americans Dan Witz and Shepard Fairley – that really pushed the movement in a new direction. Inherently political and socially conscious, this new breed of streets artists were mostly middle class, well-educated men, or as their detractors called it, “graffiti with a B.A.” City police and politicians throughout the ages have attempted to ban graffiti and arrest street artists–from NYC mayor Ed Koch in the 1980s to Toronto’s own Rob Ford last year)–to varying success.

And while Blek de Rat and Witz might not be familiar to those outside the street art community, there’s a good chance that you’ve heard Fairey’s name before. Influenced by skate culture while attending the Rhode Island School of Design in 1989, Fairey created the “André the Giant Has a Posse”sticker campaign, which eventually grew into a studio where he created t-shirts, album artwork and posters. One of those posters, an image of then U.S. senator Barack Obama with the word “HOPE” underneath, became synonymous with the 2008 Obama presidential campaign.

Inspired by Fairey’s lead, a second (or third) wave of street artists arose in the 1990s, incorporating and subverting pop culture references as a backlash to commercialism and what Mount refers to as “Disney’s prohibition on cute.” These artists used media and techniques ranging from mosaic tiling to sticker art to wheatpasting.

The most famous of these street artists was an England-based graffiti artist known only as “Banksy.” By combining a unique stenciling style, black-humoured and often political images, not to mention brazen public stunts (painting the Israeli West Bank barrier was one), Banksy’s reputation. “He targets the things we spend our money on and the things we don’t spend our money on,” said Mount. Between 2006 and 2007, numerous pieces by Banksy were auctioned off by Sotheby’s, fetching several million dollars each. (Banksy’s response? An image on his website with an auction house scene showing people bidding on a picture that said, “I Can’t Believe You Morons Actually Buy This Shit”)

Despite his success, Mount feels the desire for Banksy’s work may be cooling in the art world. “When you’ve been on The Simpsons, it’s harder to come across as cutting edge,”he pointed out, “He’s created this character and may not be able to step away from it.”

Authenticity is everything for artists like Banksy. “Street artists need us and other street artists to believe they’re vandals, even if they’ve been commissioned by a company to do a piece,”said Mount. One thing is for certain though–street artists aren’t going anywhere and will continue to interact with art galleries, corporate businesses and consumers as they please.

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Max Mertens’proudest artistic achievement was when he convinced his Grade 11 art teacher to paint a mural of Bob Marley on the classroom’s door for marks. Follow him on Twitter at @Max_Mertens.

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