Compro Logo Existo Series 2, 2008
Exploring the definition of urban art The New Art Gallery Walsall’s new exhibition Outsiders brings the traditionally outside ‘urban’ and ‘street’ art in doors. After a previous show of the same title in New York, fifteen international contemporary artists will be descending on Walsall to transform the gallery, with some works being created directly on the gallery walls.
Although united by attitude, influences and artistic origins range from advertising and consumer culture to New York subway graffiti. Coming from the fringes of mainstream art, some of the artists having no formal art school training, the exhibition is similarly on the edges of fine art. As curator David Thorp explains, it is based on a desire to reassess the still controversial status of street art in our cities and urban spaces. The likes of Lucy McLauchlan’s psychedelic monochrome folk style images will be sitting along side Portuguese artist Vhils’s portraiture, which uses layers of billboard posters as a canvas.
Hopes and Dreams, 2007
The exhibition will run from 5th December until 25th January 2009.
Image Credits
Vhils
Compro Logo Existo Series 2, 2008
245cm x 180cm, MDF, advertise billboards, wallpaper glue and white paint
© The artist and Lazarides
Lucy Mclauchlan
Hopes and Dreams, 2007
150 x 60cm, ink on canvas
© The artist and Lazarides
