Group show Zurich

From A Tag To An Artwork

2017 JUL 20 – JUL 29

ZURICH
Crash – JonOne – Moses + Taps – Thierry Furger – Tilt

From A Tag To An Artwork is a group exhibition with a fine and excellent selection of graffiti artists. For the first time at Kolly Gallery an exhibition is curated by Tania Di Brita. The exhibition takes place at Kolly Gallery in Zürich from July 20 to August 12, 2017.

The goal of the exhibition is to present artists that have qualitative skills, conceptual strength and the necessary innovative ideas. Also these artists all share common roots – graffiti. With a wast excess of Urban, Street and Graffiti Art allover the internet and social media platforms it is extremely important to think about ways to exhibit Graffiti Art in the right way, in order that the artist as well as the audience will find their full satisfaction.

The artists presented in this exhibition are John ‚Crash’ Matos, JonOne (John Perello), MOSES&TAPS^TM, Thierry Furger and Tilt. All their careers show how they merged and established their graffiti style into excellent contemporary art, without forgetting their roots. As the title gives away the main focus of the exhibition lies in the process of aestheticization and abstraction, which means the transformation of the formal elements, such as letters, tags, pieces from the street to stylized or even abstracted forms on canvas or other surfaces. Finally the spontaneity of a playful tag has transformed into a conceptualized work of art.

Skeptics might say Graffiti Art loses its vibrancy and transience once exhibited in a art institution, but within this group exhibition every piece offers fearlessness, energy, and explosiveness.

“It is important to take care of and preserve an art movement as precious as graffiti.”

Tania Di Brita, 2017

Tania Di Brita is art historian at the University of Zurich researching the shift of graffiti, as an art movement, to institutionalized Graffiti Art. This exhibition is a result of a long research in the field of graffiti as well as contemporary art. Unifying personal interest, work and academic research she was lucky enough to create and curate From A Tag To An Artwork. It is very important that the academic world takes care of and preserves an art movement as precious as graffiti. Therefore it needs people to write papers, books and reviews in order to capture the movement. Eventually she would like to be this kind of connecting point between art and science.