Is it now called 3d street art or what?
The question is justified. Under the term “3D street art”one could, if translated literally, not necessarily refer to “3d street painting“. 3D street art could therefore also be a 3d picture on the wall. And indeed, you can find images of 3d street painting or even some of 3d murals on house walls if you type “3d street art” into search engines.
The reason for this is that, especially in English, no consistent designation has yet become established for this new art form. Requests I get from the USA are often titled 3d street art. Of course I know what they are talking about.
This term is also popular in German. Maybe because it sounds “cooler” and looks better in posts on social media. The word street painting, even in this country, may still be more reminiscent of a copy of the Mona Lisa painted with chalk on the asphalt than a three-dimensional painting on the ground. There’s a lot of anglicisms being thrown around on social media. Many terms are adopted unquestioningly. Whether this is good and conducive to comprehensibility, I doubt.
The original term for the technique used sounds even weirder:
Anamorphosis
. Who, please, likes to mouth a word like that? When I come to people with this, in interviews for example, I literally see sheer horror in the eyes of my counterpart, or at least a big question mark on their forehead. To make it a little more complicated, “3d pavement painting” has caught on in Germany’s southern states. Thus, many different terms exist for this new art form. After all, 3d street painting has only been around for about 15 years.
So, “3d street art” can be used because while it’s a generic term for three-dimensional public art, it’s actually 3d street painting.