Vhils and André Saraiva are among more than 100 international artists whose work will be represented in "the most comprehensive graffiti and street art exhibition in the UK", which will open at Saatchi Gallery, in London.
The "Beyond the Streets London" exhibition will occupy all three floors of the gallery building from February 17th to May 9th, including stairs and corridors, and will feature more works than those featured in previous editions in Los Angeles and New York. York last year.
The space will feature everything from large-scale installations to temporary works that represent street art, organized by chapters that will explore the evolution of the movement and its relationship with music, since the appearance of punk and hip-hop in the 1970s, influence on fashion and cinema.
André Saraiva, son of Portuguese parents born in Sweden and raised in France, will participate with the "Dream" series, where, according to a press release from the gallery, a "visual articulation of how graffiti, street art, hip-hop, punk, fashion and break-dancing emerged from the late '70s and early '80s through the '90s and today, and [how] they've become a hybrid celebration of underground culture".
One of the main artists of the movement of urban art, Alexandre Farto (1987), better known as Vhils, continues to evolve and push his style by sculpting the faces of anonymous figures on a large scale, in order to reveal the hidden underlayers and fragility of urban space. He emerged on the art scene in 2008, creating a revolution through his innovative artistic practice, in which destruction is a form of construction. Vhils became an international phenomenon, mainly for its murals in public space, honoring José Saramago, Zeca Afonso, among others. The space where he grew up, Seixal, an industrialized suburb across the river from Lisbon (Portugal), profoundly influenced his practice due to the transformations caused by intense urban development in the 1980s and 1990s. Bordalo II, Banksy and Jean-Michel Basquiat, it was in the streets that the basis for his initial artistic production was formed, eventually projecting his perceptions of the outside world through his creative acts. He often carves faces in public spaces - on the side of buildings - with a variety of tools and materials that can leave a mark or remove materials, including hammers, drills, etching acid, bleach and explosives. In addition to mural sculpture, he has also been exploring other means such as serigraphy, installation, nfts and other media, such as advertising posters, wooden doors and metal plates that he collects from the streets. works by Vhils such as “Open Walls Baltimore 1”, “POW! WOW! Hawaii 2014 - King Lunalilo Mural” and “Dusk” reflect current themes in the artistic scene, such as identity, representation, ephemerality and the experience of the individual in the consumer society.
Graffiti historian Roger Gastman, who curated it, hopes the exhibition can "educate and inspire through a curious lens that penetrates into the nooks and crannies of all these subcultures and the huge role London played in bringing them to light on the world stage. ".