This time around Poeta teamed up with curator Lucas Zambrano to create an even more ambitious temporary art installation and gallery.  During the days leading up to the opening Pop-Up II: Lo Desconocido (The Unknown) was abuzz with activity as artists transformed massive walls and cavernous rooms with murals, installations and framed works. The event featured work from 30 different artists, including Kid Gaucho + Federico Felici, Mart, Dardo Malatesta, Pelos de Plumas,Amor, Ever, Jaz, Roma, Elian, Poeta, Nerf, Shonis, Cabaio Stencil, Corona, Trystan Bates, PumPum, Georgina Ciotti, and Zumi among others.

This edition of the pop up called upon the participating artists to challenge themselves creatively:

“Jump into the unknown, forget about everything we know.  A refuge is merely a place of security, and therefore a limited space where there are no surprises.  What we’ve already learned distances us from the adrenalin-filled uncertainty of throwing ourselves with abandon into the unknown.”

For artists accustomed to working outdoors, where their work is at the whim of the elements and the local public, the prospect of moving indoors could be viewed as an easy transition into a comfortable, controlled environment. The event sought to challenge this perception by encouraging artists to push themselves, maintain the ephemeral quality of their art and experiment in this new environment.

Artists responded to the challenge by testing out new materials, processes and innovative mediums. Ever created a massive mural of Chairman Mao which combined mural artwork with a delicate collage created using found materials – discarded paper and plastics. Mart created an interactive installation in the form of a wooden bicycle and rider which visitors could operate. Poeta created one of his beautiful geometric abstractions, adding strips of luminescent neon tape which gave a new dimension to the piece as the light faded.

Under a bright full moon the closing party stretched on into the early hours of the morning as artists, friends, family and neighbours from La Boca came together in a celebration of ephemeral and unconventional art.

Installations:

Kid Gaucho + Federico Felici / R3NDER + FIEND / SebaAcampante / Mart + Ale / DardoMalatesta

Mural Art:

Itu Plumas + Amor / Ever / Jaz / Roma / Elian / Malegría / Poeta / Nerf / Shonis / Cabaio / Pol Corona /

Exhibiting Artists:

Trystan Bates / Diego Roa / PumPum / Franco “Jaz” Fasoli / Rudi Caretti / Georgina Ciotti / Marina Zumi / Martín Lapalma / Yorke / Elian

Concept: Christian Riffel

Curation: Christian Riffel, Lucas Zambrano

Huge thanks go to everyone who came to the event, who bought art and supported the Buenos Aires art scene.

Special thanks go to Mart, Zumi, Roma & Poeta for bringing colour and buena onda to the streets of London, to the amazingly talented artists and photographers who participated in the show, to Londonewcastle for letting us use their incredible space, to our sponsors Gaucho, Argento Wine, Ap Art, Montana & End of the Line for their generous support and to everyone who helped us promote the show.

If you are in London (or anywhere nearby) the gallery is open every day from 12-7, closing 7pm on Thursday 13th. The address is Londonewcastle Project Space, 28 Redchurch Street, London, E2 7DP.

You can download a full catalogue of available works from the show here. If you see anything you like please let us know! All reasonable offers will be considered.

Poeta is one of a generation of young artists who began painting graffiti in the 90s, alongside Roma, Jaz, Ever & Mart. Like his contemporaries Poeta’s style and technique has evolved over the years, and his letter based pieces have made way for figurative and abstract creations.

For his first solo show, Poeta reflects on freedom and space using the metaphor of the bird, its relationship with the city, its freedom to explore and the place we define as its home. This concept is visualised through a series of delicate watercolour paintings which explore the relationships between colour, form and space.

“Pájaro” will be running until the end of May and is open to the public from 6-9pm, Tuesday to Sunday.

There’s a beautiful video to accompany the show which we’ve embedded below, and you can see more photos from the exhibition on Poeta’s flickr.

(Hollywood in Cambodia / Thames 1885)

“Díada” is the new exhibition from Poeta & Roma, held in the Museo Casa Carnacini in the heart of their barrio – Villa Ballester.

Villa Ballester is an unassuming barrio with an interesting history, located just outside the city limits of Capital Federal. In the early decades of the twentieth century Villa Ballester flourished, attracting wealthy European families, intellectuals and artists. Ballesters’ contemporary reality is a fairly chaotic jumble of retailers, businesses and newly-constructed housing blocks. However, despite its modern transformation the barrio retains a number of period buildings and its artistic character.

One of the most striking aspects of the barrio is the graffiti and art which cover its walls. If you visit by train, one of the first things you notice is the enormous mural Roma painted on a building near the opposite platform. If you come by road, you can’t fail to miss the stunning psychedelic murals painted by Poeta, Sam & Roma as you cross the railway. Venture further into Villa Ballester and you’ll discover murals and graffiti everywhere.

Poeta & Roma belong to a generation of artists who first began writing graffiti in the mid 90′s. Over time this generation experimented with techniques, materials and concepts, and their creations spanned from spray-painted letters to figurative and abstract compositions painted with everything from tar to blood.

For the exhibition “Díada”, Poeta & Roma were invited inside an important Ballester institution – the Museo Carnacini. The building itself is the former home of the painter Ceferino Carnacini, who built the house a hundred years earlier. The building has been beautifully restored, and features engravings and paintings from Carnacini on the ground floor, with a large exhibition space on the first floor.

“Díada” is a testament to Roma & Poeta’s talents as artists and their journey from childhood to maturity. The main exhibition space is full of stunning large format pieces from the pair, but our favourite part of the exhibition was a wall covered in photos in an adjoining room. The photos documented a lifetime spent painting in the streets. From the first ever pieces of graffiti they painted to their most recent murals, the photos documented each step taken by two teenage graffiti writers towards becoming the artists they are today.

One of the main aims of our project is to share the context to Buenos Aires’ urban art scene. The city’s art will always be impressive for its aesthetics, but for us it has always been just as important to provide the story of how it came to be there, who painted it and why.

“Díada” is a beautiful exhibition of Roma & Poeta’s work, made even more engaging through the presence of a visual journey depicting their development as artists.

Diada, Casa Carnacini, Calle 110 (Pueyrredón), 2720, Villa Ballester. 

Artwork by Roma

Artwork by Roma

Artwork by Poeta

Artwork by Poeta

Roma & Poeta - 1995 to present

The vast, sprawling site features countless exhibits and installations, together with some incredible murals from Argentine artists and art collectives. Following the storming success of the exhibition “Fuera de la Linea“, Lucas Zambrano & Soledad Zambrano were invited to curate what has effectively become Argentina’s largest open air exhibition of work from Buenos Aires street artists.

The towering walls of an exhibition hall offered an enormous shared canvas for a number of artists, including Pastel, Poeta, Mart, Roma, Nazza Stencil, Ever, Triangulo Dorado, Jaz along with Defi, Tec & PMP from the FASE collective. Together they transformed the non-descript warehouse into an extraordinary outdoor gallery, a testament to their talents and remarkable ease working at enormous scales.

A second space featured smaller walls surrounding the Circe de Soleil exhibit. Unfortunately some of the best pieces have been hidden from public view by the backstage area for the performers, but we sneaked behind the barriers to take some photos of works by rundontwalk, bs.as.stncl, Cabaio Stencil, Stencil Land, Vuala, Proyecto Fauna & the Federacion de Stickboxing.

There are small selection of pieces below, and you can see more on our flickr here.

Jaz

Nazza Stencil

Ever

Mart

Triangulo Dorado

Pum Pum

Stencil Land + Cabaio Stencil + rundontwalk + bs.as.stncl

Stencil Land (main image)

Set across six floors, the exhibition showcased work from Argentina artists Nerf, Pum Pum, Jaz, Ever, Georgina Ciotti, Poeta, Roma, Andrés Bonavera (Larva), Lucas Lasnier (Parbo), Pedro Perelman (PMP), rundontwalk & Nazza Stencil, Argentine art collectives federación stickboxing, DOMA & FASE together with Brazilian artists Gen Duarte, Zezau, Fefe Talavera and Highraff.

With an all-star lineup, featuring some of the best known and loved graffiti and street artists from Argentina and Brazil it was perhaps inevitable that Fuera de la Linea would be described as an exhibition of “graffiti art” in the press, however this wasn’t how curators and siblings Lucas Zambrano & Soledad Zambrano presented their exhibition. Instead of focusing on the relationship the exhibiting artists have with the streets, the curators presented them as vanguards that have consistently pushed traditional artistic boundaries – and worked “fuera de la linea” (outside the line). This subtle shift in presentation avoided any preconceptions of what a “graffiti art” exhibition should incorporate, and allowed the curators to focus on demonstrating how the artists have challenged convention.

The exhibition had been two years in the making, and to the curators it represented a progression from the work they had begun when they arranged for street artists to create collaborative murals in Carabobo & Puan subway stations. This had been a seminal moment for street art in Argentina, and represented institutional recognition for the main styles of Argentine street art. These murals were part of the long running project to capture Argentina’s artistic heritage within the subte network.

The inclusion of Brazilian artists in an exhibition of Argentine vanguards was an interesting move. The curators explained that they wanted to highlight the international quality of many of these artists’ work. In the same way they have pushed beyond the limitations of canvases and galleries, they have also taken their art beyond national borders. Artistically there has always been a special relationship between Argentina & Brazil. For many, Sao Paulo holds the crown as the most important city for street art in Latin America. Brazilian artists played an important role during the formative years of the Argentine scene, and ties remain strong between the two movements.

The exhibition was striking both in terms of the styles represented and the variety of work on display. DOMA & FASE (who had joined forces to become FAMA) created an extraordinary installation featuring an enormous wooden golem. Lying on the floor and set against a painted city backdrop, the golem had been coated in luminous paint and came to life when the lights were shut off and his glowing skeletal form was revealed. Two floors of the exhibition were dedicated to murals, and showcased a glorious display of techniques, styles and colours from Argentine and Brazilian artists who had collaborated to make creative use of the space. Two floors featured videos, photography and a space for sponsors, and the top floor of the museum featured a gallery of framed pieces together with a spectacular installation from Kid Gaucho & Federico Felici. Whilst the gallery was perhaps the most conventional use of space, it demonstrated how easily the artists could work “within the lines” when they wanted to.

True to its theme, the standout elements of the show were the occassions where artists had breached the conventional spaces, whether that meant extending beyond a framed canvas, splashing a concept across the museums’ walls or spilling out into the stairwell, where the Rosario collective Federación Stickboxing had covered the staircase between each floor in stickers, pasteups and stencils. The whole exhibition bristled with energy and colour, and collaboration between different artists & collectives was evident throughout.

The exhibition was visually spectacular and conceptually intriguing. With the majority of the artists exhibiting being best known for their works in the street, it would have been all too easy to position the show as one of “Argentine street art”. By avoiding the “street art” label, the curators highlighted something different and ultimately more interesting – the constantly changing relationship these artists have with materials, techniques, environments and audiences.

* * * * *

Photos below are from our flickr: http://www.flickr.com/graffitimundo/

Mako Fufu + Tiny Paintings

Kid Gaucho

Gen Duarte + Jaz + Fefe Talavera

Jaz

Pum Pum

DOMA + FASE

Each room featured work with from a different artist, and each took a different approach.Whilst some rooms were immaculately restored, others were left as they were found – with the textures of crumbling plaster and the shadows cast by peeling paintwork contributing to the artwork.

The installation was part of a program of events run by Red Bull called “House of Art”, which has seen various buildings in cities across the world transformed by local artists.

Plenty of brands work with street artists, commission murals and create “graffiti” style advertising, but Red Bull have been more successful than most – mainly through their commendable stance on creating opportunities, then standing well back from the artists and giving them creative control over the project.

With branded presence kept to a minimum, the “House of Art” was reminiscent of the inaugural exhibition at CCEBA, where street artists transformed another derelict building (a former orphanage) into an extraordinary collaborative art space.

Pintado por Tester

Pintado por Jaz

Pintado por Poeta

Pintado por Roma

Pintado por Triangulo Dorado

Pintado por Malatesta