It's quite a turn for an art form once treated almost exclusively as vandalism. Across Europe, graffiti and street art have become tools of urban regeneration, tourism, and cultural policy. Municipalities now spend real money to commission murals and support the artists who make them.

Street art originated in New York more than half a century ago, where it was long associated with urban decay and crime. It reached Europe in the early 1980s, carried in large part by the cult hip-hop film Wild Style. VHS copies passed through artists' hands across the continent, inspiring them to create their first pieces. The new art form quickly found its place in cities such as Amsterdam, Paris, London, Bristol, and later in Germany.

While graffiti gained recognition in the press and appeared in exhibitions, the late 1980s saw European cities adopt zero-tolerance policies to keep the walls clean. Still, some works remained untouched and became part of the urban landscape.

Legality vs illegality

To encourage artists to work within the law, cities started establishing so-called legal walls – designated areas where anyone can paint freely without risk of prosecution.

Stockholm is often cited as a pioneer of this approach. In 1968, the city installed one of Europe's first public “scribble boards” – a wooden wall that was repainted daily, allowing anyone to draw or write whatever they liked.

In 1984, the Berlin Wall became another canvas for political and social expression. French artist Thierry Noir was among the first to paint on it illegally, inspiring a new generation of graffiti writers. After the Wall fell in 1989, artists from around the world were invited to paint its previously bare eastern side. Today, the site is a city monument known as the East Side Gallery, the longest open-air gallery in the world.

Almost every major city now has legal walls and street galleries like these, usually built through collaboration between writers, property owners, municipalities, and cultural institutions. Artists are selected via open calls, festivals, or curatorial programmes, and many receive fees, materials, or other support.

Yet there's no evidence that legal walls themselves reduce unauthorised painting. A 2015 study by Safer Sweden on legal walls in Sweden suggested they may even have the opposite effect: fewer than a quarter of municipalities studied saw an increase in illegal graffiti, while around 42% observed no change. Because the study did not measure whether illegal graffiti decreased, their conclusions were criticised by some cultural officials, who argued that research on the topic remains thin.

Legal or not, all pieces can leave a lasting mark on a city's identity. Bristol and Barcelona are recognised as global street art capitals thanks to their graffiti scenes. In neighbourhoods such as Shoreditch in London and Kreuzberg in Berlin, some works have been preserved as local landmarks, and many cities run street art tours all year round.

Rebellion

But graffiti isn't just about art. Behind every tag or train bombing lies an act of rebellion and sabotage – the very foundation of graffiti culture. Some artists are reluctant to give that up.

“As a guy who spent half of his life painting trains, walls, and writing my name on any surface possible, I don’t really care about legal graffiti or the so-called ‘muralist scene’,” Belgrade-based graffiti artist Cre0le told The European Correspondent.

Many artists look down on state-commissioned murals, seeing these planned, carefully managed works as far removed from graffiti's rebellious roots. They tend to lack spontaneity, since authorities usually have a say in what gets painted, and the content that results is often tamer for it.

“I would personally partake every once in a while, especially if I can make some money or restock my inventory with some free paint afterward,” Cre0le said. “Usually, if it involves government, it means censorship,” he added.

“However, in a lot of cities like Milan or Amsterdam, murals and legal walls are curated by people who are into street art wholeheartedly, and there most of the pieces fit in perfectly and accompany the new architecture just splendidly.”

Street art as a nationalist tool

In some countries, state-sponsored graffiti is a real ethical dilemma for artists, as governments may use it to promote political or nationalist narratives.

In Serbia, for example, city walls reflect ongoing political debates. Pro-government graffiti often appears through affiliated patriotic groups, but usually without official tenders or transparent funding. In spring 2023, Belgrade and Novi Sad were covered with stencil inscriptions reading “Milica Lažljivica” (“Milica the Liar”) and “Miloš Francuz” (“Miloš the Frenchman”).

The tags targeted members of parliament Milica Đurđević and Miloš Jovanović (who also has French citizenship). Both had opposed the EU-backed proposal to resolve the Kosovo issue, which president Aleksandar Vučić had agreed to pursue.

In Russia, authorities fund murals glorifying those who have participated in the invasion of Ukraine on buildings, facades, schools, and other public spaces. Commissions for this kind of pro-army, pro-militarism “art” have long been a part of various municipal and federal programmes.