Openning saturday 30 th of JANUARY 2010 18:00 à 21:00
Exhibition from JANUARY 30th to MARCH 4th 2010
THUSDAY-SATURDAY 11:00 - 19:00
From Bronx to museum
John CRASH
Matos is one of the pioneers of Street Art. Born in the Bronx in 1961, he
started developing his style on the trains of
New York at the age of 13. As all graffiti
artists, he needed to spread his blaze: Crash as far as possible. This "underground" art has aquired recognition
in the art world when Crash
abandoned walls and trains to exhibit at
Sidney
Janis
Gallery and at
Real Art Ways, next
to Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. The Post graffiti was born: graffiti
had travelled from trains to galleries.
In 1978, Crash
began working on canvas. He found in the workshop the time he didn’t have in
the street. He could now express himself freely. His more personal paintings
remind at this point abstract expressionism. However, as in his earlier works,
the same feeling of violence emerges. This fast, powerful and lively-coloured
painting is influenced by pop artists such as Lichtenstein, Rosenquist,
Richter, Wesselman and Jones. In 1980, Crash
si
gned his last graffiti in the street
and organized at the Fashion Moda "Graffiti
Art Success", the first significant
exhibition where, for the first time, Street Art is taken seriously by both the
public and critics. The use of spray won general acclaim. Crash became the major and prolific pioneer of Post-graffiti. To
him, indeed, an artist must paint every day, without interruption.
Crash managed to impose the authenticity of his style,
stemming from the hip-hop culture, to the world of art, even in the most
important museums such as MOMA in
New York or
the
Museum of
Groningen
in the
Netherlands.
He was one of the first to add the 3D representation to lettering: fragments of
face, eyes mingling with the letters of his name. His style is at the origin of
a whole graphic expression that continues to inspire young graffiti artists,
without being equaled. Perhaps this influence is due to the faithfulness of
this precursor to his early inspirations?
Back
to the origins
Crash has become an icon, but he does not forget his
beginnings near the subway trains. For his new exhibition, he takes up with his
origins and returns to the spirit of the street to rediscover the emotions he
experienced when he was hiding to paint in the warehouses. Always in aerosol
spray, he paints directly on pieces of metal and works his canvases as he would
with a train, using pictorial effects evoking metal nails and separations of
cars. He restores those moments that can only be understood by the people who
pace up and down dark tunnels, armed with spray.
Finding the initial feelings
of contact with the mater is a way for the mature artist to pay tribute to
graffiti and to this profuse root of an art he has created. For the first time
a King (the one that his crew recognizes
as the most talented) comes back with nostalgia on the atmosphere of his early
period. This exhibition expresses the artist's need of showing his faithfulness
to the inspiring revolt that allowed him to introduce the art of graffiti.
History looks regularly back into its foundation and this is why ADDICT Galerie considered exploring the
source of this movement essential in order to recapture its essence.
Graffiti is an ephemeral art. Crash’s first urban paintings have now disappeared but the artist
has protected their memory by photographing them. ADDICT Galerie displays these photographs (now considered as works
of art) next to canvases. They are the witnesses of bygone days, of an art
movement destroyed by the zealous MTA, and its repressive cleaning firm in
New York. These
photographs show the last traces of a rebelled graffiti, of this spontaneous
expression of artists in the Bronx that travelled by subway to the heart of
Manhattan. These pictures
also show how Crash keeps improving
his lettering and contributes to the progression of graffiti by allowing it to
establish a link between "the street life and conventional society".
ADDICT
Galerie,
with this exhibition from January 30th
to March 4th 2010, replies to all Street-Art detractors who are still
wondering how legitimate “imprisoning" the graffiti in a confined space
can be. It proclaims that this movement is definitely the most revolutionary of
the late twentieth century. Moreover, John CRASH
Matos, who was rapidly reco
gnized by
traditional circles, never had to question himself about these now obsolete
thoughts. Supporting the emerging movements and Street Art since its beginning, ADDICT Galerie takes over from
New York galleries of
the eighties, such as the Fun Gallery, Razor Galley and Sidney Janis, which
allowed graffiti to be recognized.
