Street Art
23 May – 25 August 2008
Free Entry
The Tate Modern in London is having a street art exhibition which includes artists interviewed in BOMB IT. Check it out:
In the first commission to use the iconic river façade of Tate Modern,
the gallery will present the work of six internationally acclaimed
artists, whose work is intricately linked to the urban environment.
Street Art at Tate Modern, sponsored by Nissan QASHQAI, opens on 23
May and is the first major public museum display of Street Art in
London.
All six artists are represented in major collections around the world
and regularly shown in gallery exhibitions and biennales but their
work began in public urban spaces and remains indebted to Street Art
and graffiti traditions. The artists are: Blu from Bologna, Italy; the
artist collective Faile from New York, USA; JR from Paris, France;
Nunca and Os Gemeos, both from Sao Paulo, Brazil and Sixeart from
Barcelona, Spain.
Street Art at Tate Modern brings to the fore an important aspect of
current art practice and one that has influenced acclaimed artists,
including Basquiat and Picasso. Although the term Street Art has been
used since the late Seventies, the work, by its very nature, is in
constant flux and hard to categorise. Broadly speaking the term has
come to define the more visual and engaging urban art as opposed to
text-based graffiti and tagging.
The work of Nunca (Portuguese for Never, Sao Paulo) is heavily
influenced by the geometric patterns and colours found in the
indigenous artwork and culture of South America. By placing images of
native rural people from South America within the urban context of Sao
Paulo his work comments on the history and culture of the city and
country. His work also includes carvings, installations, sculpture and
works on canvas.
Street Art at Tate Modern opens at the same time as Tate Modern’s four
day festival of art and performance, UBS Openings: The Long Weekend on
23 May and fits with the theme for this year’s event – States of Flux.
For more information on this programme of events please visit
www.tate.org.uk/thelongweekend2008. Street Art has been curated by
Cedar Lewisohn of Tate Media. A fully illustrated book on Street Art
by Cedar Lewisohn will be published by Tate this May.
Tate Modern
Bankside
London SE1 9TG
map
E-mail: visiting.modern@tate.org.uk
