Street art comes indoors

According to the Financial Times a home is typically a shelter from the outside world but a new generation of property owner is bringing the exterior indoors: the market for graphic and street art, now part of every metropolitan centre, is booming. Works first seen fly-postered, stickered, stencilled or graffitied along side roads and up back alleys are increasingly offered by edgier galleries and are attracting the attention of large auction houses, catering to a market that has blossomed in the wake of the hype surrounding controversial urban artist Banksy - whose pieces now sell for upwards of £50,000 and who counts the likes of actor Brad Pitt and singer Christina Aguilera among his collectors. This month |London auction house Bonhams, for instance, held its first sale devoted entirely to urban art, with spring seeing smaller galleries also hosting shows by the likes of Blek Le Rat and David Choe, both respected (if sometimes identity-protecting) names in the street art (under)world.

The works of such artists are typically produced in print editions of between 50 and 200 and sell out quickly - an edition of 200 by the artist D*Face released last month sold out online in just eight minutes. And certainly their investment value is, for some buyers, part of their appeal.

As subject to the same vagaries as the trade in established, more serious, fine art, the market for street art can nevertheless see impressive returns: works by hot tickets Faile and Paul Insect sold at the beginning of last year at £2,000 and £7,000 respectively were selling for £7,000 and £35,000 by the end of the year, according to Steve Lazarides of Banksy's gallery, Lazarides.

But for many a good return is not the chief incentive to buy. Rather, these bold and arresting pieces are becoming totems of the contemporary interior. "These works work so well in the home because, like interiors, they do say so much about the homeowner," suggests Mike Snelle, director of the Black Rat Press, who represents leading artists such as D*Face, Swoon and Blek Le Rat. "The buying base is very broad now, from hedge fund managers to plumbers. This is a market that is not elitist in any way."

One of the primary appeals of buying such art for the home is its accessibility, both in terms of price and the gallery culture. "Unique, hand-made prints - not a poster of a work from some art shop - by many of the up-and-coming names can be bought for between £50 and £300," according to Cassius Colman, curator of London's Nelly Duff gallery.

"The work is perhaps seen in the street first, so the buyer often has the same understanding of it as the gallery, which makes the buying experience very unintimidating," suggests Snelle.

"The fuss about Banksy has been important in making people aware of the street art market's existence, even with people who live in areas where there is little street art. The typical customer is someone who has never bought original art for their home before - few movements can claim to create a new market like that."

Indeed, demand is in part being driven by a generation of buyers who grew up with the hip-hop, skate, protest movement and graffiti cultures - associating the latter with style and vigour rather than vandalism - and who, now in their 30s, are financially established enough to buy into such works, especially as their interests turn from socialising to nest-building.

This is a new kind of art for a new kind of buyer - a now-monied generation that doesn't have any real interest in "traditional" art but does want works on its walls that reflect its members' connections to a fast-moving culture," says artist Ben Eine. "To put it bluntly, much of this work is cool and far more exciting than anything Damien Hirst does."

Certainly the very nature of street art - self-consciously provocative; populist; frequently politicised or engaged with current affairs; graphic in its simplicity, often with a sense of humour lacking in fine art; with many of the images capable of attaining iconic status - makes it a new style of pop art, which similarly inspired a new generation into hanging original pieces in the home.

"This work is current, on the street, in the news. It's dynamic and so obviously contemporary it is bound to appeal to younger consumers who already have an appreciation of, for instance, album art," says Jason Zeloof, co-owner of the Stolen Space gallery, which represents the likes of Shepard Fairey and Mysterious Al. "It is much easier to relate to, compared with, say, a Picasso. As part of an interior, that makes the home dynamic and contemporary too."

However, accessibility also risks turning it into something of a lifestyle advertising cliché. Collector Hubert Zandberg, architect and interior designer for Hubert Zandberg Interiors, which also runs a service to provide street art to boutique hotels and private homes, argues that the exceptionally engaging aesthetic typically shared by street art works can be lost if they are hung as part of the minimalistic, gallery-style "white box" look of many contemporary interiors. "In fact, street art's is an aesthetic that is best seen not in a gallery setting or anything like it but in a designed environment, in a dialogue with objets d'art or furnishings," he says.