Graffiti and street art – from „the broken windows theory” to auction at Sotheby’s house

Street art is one of the most attractive phenomena in contemporary art today. Interestingly, it is largely derived from the illegal graffiti work, which for a long time was considered vandalism and it was not tolerated by the authorities and a large part of society. The history of graffiti is a great example of shifting the limits of tolerance among the art recipients and inside the phenomenon itself, which initially was an expression of independence and rebellion. In this article I would like to follow this process on several simultaneous levels: social, artistic, institutional and educational, each time showing a change going from a negation to an acceptance and even an affirmation.