"DO IT HERE" with EROTIK VMD 70'S
Rome, Milan - 2015
Where does graffiti rightly belong, assuming it belongs anywhere? More to the point, is it correct to call a piece of work “graffiti” if it is made specifically to be hung in a gallery? Stripped of its illicit nature, is it actually graffiti when it is in the gallery? Further complicating the discussion, he uses a stencil for the inside piece, a technique many graffiti artists wouldn’t consider graffiti.
For Fra. Biancoshock’s new project, in which he collaborated with one of the historically well known and celebrated Italian graffiti writers, Erotik, he fairly decisively tells us his opinion on definition and gives a pretty straightforward directive. Perhaps he is advocating that graffiti and street artists not show their work as fine art in a gallery setting at all.“This is a provocative project that underlines the importance of clarifying what graffiti is, where it were born, and where is the natural place to create it,” he says. “The phrase is simple and immediate. Similarly the concept is simple: Do graffiti in the street, illegally, without sponsors, not on the canvases for exhibition spaces,” he says. In other words, you cannot make a work for the gallery and call it graffiti, and that is not where it belongs.
(Brooklyn Street Art)
End to end - spray can | 80 x 60 cm - acrylic paint, stencil
Rome, Milan - 2015
Where does graffiti rightly belong, assuming it belongs anywhere? More to the point, is it correct to call a piece of work “graffiti” if it is made specifically to be hung in a gallery? Stripped of its illicit nature, is it actually graffiti when it is in the gallery? Further complicating the discussion, he uses a stencil for the inside piece, a technique many graffiti artists wouldn’t consider graffiti.
For Fra. Biancoshock’s new project, in which he collaborated with one of the historically well known and celebrated Italian graffiti writers, Erotik, he fairly decisively tells us his opinion on definition and gives a pretty straightforward directive. Perhaps he is advocating that graffiti and street artists not show their work as fine art in a gallery setting at all.“This is a provocative project that underlines the importance of clarifying what graffiti is, where it were born, and where is the natural place to create it,” he says. “The phrase is simple and immediate. Similarly the concept is simple: Do graffiti in the street, illegally, without sponsors, not on the canvases for exhibition spaces,” he says. In other words, you cannot make a work for the gallery and call it graffiti, and that is not where it belongs.
(Brooklyn Street Art)
End to end - spray can | 80 x 60 cm - acrylic paint, stencil