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Walk through the Florentin neighbourhood in south Tel Aviv and you will find colour almost everywhere: giant faces on the sides of houses, small stencils on electricity boxes, words painted in several languages. Some tourists come especially to photograph it, and many residents love it. Others see nothing but damage to property that they have to pay to clean. The same wall, it seems, can be a gallery for one person and a mess for another.

Street art raises an old question in a new form: who decides what counts as art? For centuries the answer was fairly clear. Experts — critics, museum directors, wealthy collectors — chose which works deserved to be kept and admired. Street artists avoid that process completely. They do not ask permission, they do not wait for an invitation, and their audience is anyone who happens to walk past.

That freedom is exactly what supporters value. Not only does street art bring colour to the grey corners of a city, but it also gives a voice to people who would never be shown in a gallery. A painting on a wall can comment on politics, poverty or the environment, and it reaches people who would never buy a ticket to a museum.

Critics, however, point out a simple fact: in most places, painting on someone else's wall without permission is against the law. What matters to a shop owner who finds his new door covered in paint is not whether the painting is beautiful, but that nobody asked him. And for every work that people admire, there are many quick tags that few would call art at all.

The art market has made the question even more confusing. The British artist known as Banksy, who has never publicly revealed his identity, began by painting illegally on walls. Today his works sell for millions. In 2018, one of his paintings, Girl with Balloon, partly destroyed itself moments after it was sold at an auction in London: a shredder had been hidden inside the frame. Rather than losing its value, the half-shredded work became even more famous. If a museum would happily display a work that was once removed from a wall as vandalism, where exactly is the line?

Some cities have tried to settle the argument by offering legal walls or by paying artists to paint large murals. Supporters say that this protects both the artists and the owners. Others argue that street art which has been invited loses its point. Perhaps there is no single answer. What is clear is that the question "Is it art?" is rarely just about art. It is also about who owns public space, and whose voice gets to be seen in it.

Walk through the Florentin neighbourhood in south Tel Aviv and you will find colour almost everywhere: giant faces on the sides of houses, small stencils on electricity boxes, words painted in several languages. Some tourists come especially to photograph it, and many residents love it. Others see nothing but damage to property that they have to pay to clean. The same wall, it seems, can be a gallery for one person and a mess for another.

Street art raises an old question in a new form: who decides what counts as art? For centuries the answer was fairly clear. Experts — critics, museum directors, wealthy collectors — chose which works deserved to be kept and admired. Street artists avoid that process completely. They do not ask permission, they do not wait for an invitation, and their audience is anyone who happens to walk past.

That freedom is exactly what supporters value. Not only does street art bring colour to the grey corners of a city, but it also gives a voice to people who would never be shown in a gallery. A painting on a wall can comment on politics, poverty or the environment, and it reaches people who would never buy a ticket to a museum.

Critics, however, point out a simple fact: in most places, painting on someone else's wall without permission is against the law. What matters to a shop owner who finds his new door covered in paint is not whether the painting is beautiful, but that nobody asked him. And for every work that people admire, there are many quick tags that few would call art at all.

The art market has made the question even more confusing. The British artist known as Banksy, who has never publicly revealed his identity, began by painting illegally on walls. Today his works sell for millions. In 2018, one of his paintings, Girl with Balloon, partly destroyed itself moments after it was sold at an auction in London: a shredder had been hidden inside the frame. Rather than losing its value, the half-shredded work became even more famous. If a museum would happily display a work that was once removed from a wall as vandalism, where exactly is the line?

Some cities have tried to settle the argument by offering legal walls or by paying artists to paint large murals. Supporters say that this protects both the artists and the owners. Others argue that street art which has been invited loses its point. Perhaps there is no single answer. What is clear is that the question "Is it art?" is rarely just about art. It is also about who owns public space, and whose voice gets to be seen in it.

Walk through the Florentin neighbourhood in south Tel Aviv and you will find colour almost everywhere: giant faces on the sides of houses, small stencils on electricity boxes, words painted in several languages. Some tourists come especially to photograph it, and many residents love it. Others see nothing but damage to property that they have to pay to clean. The same wall, it seems, can be a gallery for one person and a mess for another.

Street art raises an old question in a new form: who decides what counts as art? For centuries the answer was fairly clear. Experts — critics, museum directors, wealthy collectors — chose which works deserved to be kept and admired. Street artists avoid that process completely. They do not ask permission, they do not wait for an invitation, and their audience is anyone who happens to walk past.

That freedom is exactly what supporters value. Not only does street art bring colour to the grey corners of a city, but it also gives a voice to people who would never be shown in a gallery. A painting on a wall can comment on politics, poverty or the environment, and it reaches people who would never buy a ticket to a museum.

Critics, however, point out a simple fact: in most places, painting on someone else's wall without permission is against the law. What matters to a shop owner who finds his new door covered in paint is not whether the painting is beautiful, but that nobody asked him. And for every work that people admire, there are many quick tags that few would call art at all.

The art market has made the question even more confusing. The British artist known as Banksy, who has never publicly revealed his identity, began by painting illegally on walls. Today his works sell for millions. In 2018, one of his paintings, Girl with Balloon, partly destroyed itself moments after it was sold at an auction in London: a shredder had been hidden inside the frame. Rather than losing its value, the half-shredded work became even more famous. If a museum would happily display a work that was once removed from a wall as vandalism, where exactly is the line?

Some cities have tried to settle the argument by offering legal walls or by paying artists to paint large murals. Supporters say that this protects both the artists and the owners. Others argue that street art which has been invited loses its point. Perhaps there is no single answer. What is clear is that the question "Is it art?" is rarely just about art. It is also about who owns public space, and whose voice gets to be seen in it.