Expert Eye
IS URBAN ART ACADEMIC?
1 Destination 5 Spots
STREET ART BRUSSELS
Place2Art
GDANSK ZAPSA
Investigations
WHEN STREET ART TAKES ON URBAN FURNITURE
Talents
PHILIPPE ECHAROUX / LEVALET / FINTAN MAGEE / JULIO ANAYA CABANDING / MINA MANIA / ARNE QUINZE
May Urban Art be plentiful
EDITO #61 | February – March 2022
A new year has begun. May it bring projects, challenges, and a vibrant production of murals, graffiti, installations, and canvasses. But may it also be filled with encounters during festivals, fairs, and openings, or simply the production of works that embellish our cities. There are so many occasions and places where Urban Art can hybridise, mutate, develop, and assert itself in multiple forms. Urban Art is a blend of endless flavours.
This strange time we are living in constantly reminds us how crucial it is to respect the environment and diversity to build a peaceful world. With his Street Art 2.0, Philippe Echaroux combines light and vegetation to deliver clear messages about a suffering nature. Levalet and Fintan Magee are also driven by this quest for peace in their poetical urban works in which mankind is still looking for its place in the world. They have embarked on the same quest, yet with different techniques. Humanity is also at the core of Mina Mania’s work and her ode to femininity, as well as of the floral works of Arne Quinze who looks to bring people closer together through open-air museums. And in the hands of Julio Anaya Cabading, Urban Art and art history collide.
Going further, we also explore the various facets of Urban Art that contribute to its diversity and wealth. Born in the street, Urban Art has found in urban furniture a playground of choice and a boundless means of expression (detournement, colouring, artistic medium, etc.). The very opposite of a spontaneous practice, classical canons and themes question us about the place of academism in certain Urban Art trends. Shouldn’t we talk about the multiplicity of Urban Arts rather than Urban Art?
Such multiplicity expresses itself in Brussels, through the artistic effervescence of districts such as Les Marolles or the historical city centre, as well as in Gdansk where the unconventional suburb of Zaspa offers the most diverse gathering of outdoor murals in Europe. And finally, metaverses and NFTs are the accelerators of the spread and diversification of Urban Art.
May Urban Arts be ever exuberant!
