What does it mean to say something is Urban Art? Well, wikipedia says the following:

Urban art sometimes known as graffiti is a style of art that relates to cities and city life often done by artists who live in or have a passion for city life. The term urban means "from the city". Sometimes Urban art is called "street art". The style of this art is mostly cartoon based, and sometimes realistic. The art is sometimes viewed as vandalism and destruction of property.

I think that Urban art can be much more than graffiti -- it can be art that captures city life in a photorealistic way and does not have to be painted on the actual buildings or sidewalks - but rather can be images of buildings, storefronts, billboards, and even of people captured in the moment on streets, in front of stores and even riding the public transportations.

Here is an example of some amazing city art from Lisbon, Portugal - this art happens to be on buildings but is it graffiti, or Urban art or both? (click on the image to see more)

You can watch the creation of this here:

and here is some urban art from Boston, MA (click on the image to see more)

Urban art can be exciting, edgy, sexy and not have to be grafiti. If you have any thoughts or ideas on this I'd love to hear them.