Illegally painting your work is desired

More than 100 urban works of art from artists from more than 20 countries can be enjoyed, from this afternoon, in Murcia, thanks to the exhibition ‘of vandals to legends’, which has two headquarters: the Museum of Fine Arts (MUBAM) and the desacralized church of San Esteban.

The exhibition, which will open this afternoon at 7:00 p.m. and can be visited until July 27, is organized by the Murcia Street Art Project and the community. During the inauguration of the same in the Mubam, the British artist Dale Grimshaw will carry out a live intervention that “promises to be a vibrant sample of his technical mastery and his unmistakable style, which combines graffiti’s energy with the precision of the hyperrealist portrait,” they indicate from Murcia Art Project. On the other hand, Carlos Callizo, Doctor ‘Cum Laude’ in Fine Arts from the University of Murcia – and professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the UMU – and one of the current referents of the dialogue between traditional painting, muralism and urban art, painted live yesterday in San Esteban.

«We have been working on this type of exhibitions and focused on urban art since 2017, when we made the first exhibition at Mubam. At that time, Javier Bernal was the director of the museum. It was a personal commitment and had a tremendous success, had live interventions and visitor record, ”recalls Darío Vigueras, the visible face of the Murcia Street Art Project collective. That impulse was consolidated in 2019 with another exhibition in the Muram of Cartagena, which not only attracted thousands of visitors, but revealed an essential fact: a majority of young audiences approached a museum for the first time thanks to an artistic proposal close to their interests and languages.

For the art expert, «the contrast to the works that occurs in San Esteban is brutal. For this space, which has very high roofs, large -format works have been sought. The visual impact is high, ”says Vigueras on a room in which 20 large -format works will be exhibited, many of them exceeding 2.5 meters and some up to 6 meters long. All the works of the sample belong to the different members of this group, who prefer to stay in anonymity and that, mostly – “98%” -, have not been exposed previously: “There are some pieces that are going to be repeated, because we consider that they are iconic and take time without showing. I think it was necessary ».

The MUBAM, meanwhile, will host 83 works in different formats, techniques and supports: from traditional canvas to metal, wood, paper, canvases or wall fragments. Among the artists that are shown are essential names such as Banksy, Obey, Cope2, Futura 2000, Blek Le Rat, Os Twins, Vhils, Aboudia, Retna, Bordalo II, Dran and Invader, all of them world referents in the urban art scene.

“I like the work of Dante and Crasser,” reveals his tastes the art march, which considers that “there are also iconic works that, of course, are very striking, such as Obey and Banksy, which is the best known. As an image of the exhibition we have used a work by Blek that it defines urban art. He began working on this in the 1980s and was one of the precursors of the Stencil staff, which Banksy uses as an artistic support. The work that is part of the image of the exhibition has, for me, a special meaning. In addition, we have very significant national and local edges, such as Okuda and Pichiavo ».

Artistic wealth

‘From vandals to legends. URBAN ART ‘, «It highlights the artistic wealth that custodia the region of Murcia in the hands of private collectors, comparable to that of the only three urban art museums existing in the world: Miami, Berlin and the Netherlands,” they indicate from Murcia Street Art Project on a exhibition that draws a tour of the history of urban art from its origins in the 70s until today. A visual, technical and conceptual trip for one of the most influential movements of contemporary art.

On the relevance of the name of the exhibition, the art march considers that “it is a title that says a lot. Now, the artist goes out with training in Fine Arts or design and there is a path already walked. Today they allow you to intervene in the wall in a controlled and authorized way, but there is a part of the exhibition focused on those first iconic artists of the 70s in New York, where they really had to do it in a ‘vandalic’ way, if we refer to not asking for authorization in the public space. His works, currently, are worth a lot of money. It should be noted that Banksy continues to perform a vandalism painting, since it does not ask for authorization when it paints. But here we have works such as Blade, who has gone through police station to paint. The title is the way between the time that has passed since they did it illegally until they had such recognition that people want to buy their work and expose in galleries around the world, ”explains the Murcian.