Google's Street Art project turns its focus to sidewalk drawings and graffiti tags

Google started bringing pieces of museum art online in 2011, and now it’s moved on to street art.

Google Cultural Institute’s latest venture, The Street Art Project, launched earlier this week. It’s like a digital museum of more than 5,000 works of art painted on walls, sidewalks, buildings, and other public surfaces.

The images were either shot by Google Street View cameras or contributed by artists and cultural institutions. Google stores the images in a database, which can be searched by artist and by location.

The collection includes spray-painted murals that play tricks on the eye, politically charged installations, candy-colored art on highway underpasses, crochet-covered cars and sticker-covered windows. The exhibition also includes 100 graffiti-related exhibitions.

Google has been working on the project for the past few months and got help from experts in the street art genre to pick the best works.

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