Over the past half century, not only has there been an increase in the amount and types of graffiti and street art appearing in large urban centers, but so too has attention paid to this type of urban public art.
One of dominant questions, however, that pervades this activity is why do people and groups engage in graffiti and street art?
Temporarily setting aside definitions of graffiti and street art, since the emergence of these activities, one of the dominant perceptions is that graffiti and street art are acts of resistance.
Indeed a considerable amount of graffiti and street art has been produced during major social and political revolutions, protests (e.g., Black Lives Matter), and campaigns of resistance (e.g., against the Russian Invasion of Ukraine), etc. (thus leading to the term conflict graffiti), but there is a significant amount of graffiti/street art that is put up that bears no connection to these types of events.
Thus to suggest that all work done by street art luminaries such as Banksy or Shepard Fairey, for example, are works of resistance is a gross simplification of their body of work.