BANSKY/
Banksy is an anonymous England-based graffiti artist, political activist and film director of unverified identity.
Their satirical street art and subversive epigrams combine dark humour with graffiti executed in a distinctive stenciling technique. Banksy's works of political and social commentary have been featured on streets, walls, and bridges of cities throughout the world.
Banksy's work grew out of the Bristol underground scene, which involved collaborations between artists and musicians. Banksy says that they were inspired by 3D, a graffiti artist who later became a founding member of the English musical group Massive Attack.
> / LEARN MOREBanksy displays their art on publicly visible surfaces such as walls and self-built physical prop pieces. Banksy does not sell photographs or reproductions of their street graffiti, but art auctioneers have been known to attempt to sell the street art on location and leave the problem of its removal in the hands of the winning bidder. Banksy created a documentary film, Exit Through the Gift Shop, billed as "the world's first street art disaster movie", which made its debut at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film was released in the UK on 5 March 2010. In January 2011, Banksy was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Documentary for the film. In 2014, Banksy was awarded Person of the Year at the 2014 Webby Awards.
On 19 June 2002, Banksy's first Los Angeles exhibition debuted at 33 1⁄3 Gallery, a tiny Silver Lake venue owned by Frank Sosa. The exhibition, entitled Existencilism, was curated by 33 1⁄3 Gallery, Malathion LA's Chris Vargas, Funk Lazy Promotions' Grace Jehan, and B+.
In 2003, at an exhibition called Turf War, held in a London warehouse, Banksy painted on animals. At the time they gave one of their very few interviews, to the BBC's Nigel Wrench. Although the RSPCA declared the conditions suitable, an animal rights activist chained herself to the railings in protest. An example of Banksy's subverted paintings is Monet's Water Lily Pond, adapted to include urban detritus such as litter and a shopping trolley floating in its reflective waters; another is Edward Hopper's Nighthawks, redrawn to show that the characters are looking at a British football hooligan, dressed only in his Union Flag underpants, who has just thrown an object through the glass window of the cafe. These oil paintings were shown at a twelve-day exhibition in Westbourne Grove, London in 2005.
ALICE
PASQUINI/
Alice Pasquini's artwork is seen not only on urban surfaces and walls, but also in galleries and museums in more than one hundred different cities around the world. Alice travels continuously and her preferred canvases are city walls.
The Roman artist, both a street artist and painter, as well as an illustrator and set designer, has developed different threads in her research, from narrating feminine vitality to manipulating the three-dimensional possibilities of her work. She moves from urban explorations to installations using found materials.
Sydney, New York, Barcelona, Oslo, Moscow, Paris, Copenhagen, Marrakech, Berlin, Saigon, London, and Rome are some of the cities where her work can be found. Alice graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, and has lived and worked in Great Britain, France, and Spain.
> / LEARN MOREWhile in Madrid she completed coursework in animation at the Ars animación school and, in 2004, obtained an MA in critical art studies at the Universidad Computense. The work has moved from the beginnings of graffiti and vandalism to new modes where artists work to bring messages, or just simple beauty, to an audience.
In 2015 she collaborated with the Tourism and Culture Assessor and the Legality and Coastline Assessor of Rome for the 3D project Under Layers in Ostia. In 2013 she realized a cycle of works for the Capitoline Museums in Rome, which are visible in Piazza Campidoglio, as well as a panel for the Pinacoteca Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea in Gaeta, Italy. Her work has been exhibited in the Museo Italiano, Melbourne (2017), Saatchi Gallery, London (2016); MACRO Contemporary Art Museum in Rome (2014); Tri-Mission Art Gallery, American Embassy, Rome (2013); Galleria d’Arte Provinciale Santa Chiara e alla Galleria Nazionale, Cosenza (2013); Casa dell’Architettura, Rome (2013); Palazzo Candiotti, Foligno (2012); Espace Pierre Cardin, Paris (2012); Mutuo Centro de Arte, Barcelona (2012).
In addition, Alice has completed projects with international clients, such as Canon, Nike, Range Rover, Toyota, and Microsoft, illustrated the graphic novel Vertigine (Rizzoli, 2011). Alice and her work have been featured in New York Times International, The Wall Street Journal, l’Espresso, Panorama, Vanity, and many other international publications.
She taught a cycle of workshops at the Hangar Bicocca in Milan in 2016 and collaborated with FIPAV and ATAC to repaint Rome’s Stazione Due Ponti. She has also collaborated with the Italian Cultural Institute of Singapore (2013) and Uruguay (2015). In 2016 she was tasked with painting the facade of the Museo Italiano in Melbourne, where she also held a solo exhibition.
SHEPARD
FAIREY/
Frank Shepard Fairey (born February 15, 1970) is an American contemporary street artist, graphic designer, activist, illustrator and founder of OBEY Clothing who emerged from the skateboarding scene. He first became known for his "Andre the Giant Has a Posse" (…OBEY…) sticker campaign while attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), which appropriated images from the comedic supermarket tabloid Weekly World News.
He became widely known during the 2008 U.S. presidential election for his Barack Obama "Hope" poster. The Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston has described him as one the best known and most influential street artists.
His work is included in the collections at The Smithsonian, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art in New York City, the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the National Portrait Gallery in Washington, D.C., the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond, and the Victoria and Albert Museum in London.
> / LEARN MOREFairey's first art museum exhibition, titled Supply & Demand (as was his earlier book), was held in Boston at the Institute of Contemporary Art during the summer of 2009. The exhibition featured more than 250 works in a wide variety of media: screen prints, stencils, stickers, rubylith illustrations, collages, and works on wood, metal and canvas. As a complement to the ICA exhibition, Fairey created public art works around Boston. The artist explains his driving motivation: "The real message behind most of my work is 'question everything’.
Fairey created the "André the Giant Has a Posse" sticker campaign in 1989, while attending the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). This later evolved into the "Obey Giant" campaign, which has grown via an international network of collaborators replicating Fairey's original designs. Fairey intended the Obey Giant to inspire curiosity and cause people to question their relationship with their surroundings. According to the Obey Giant website, "The sticker has no meaning but exists only to cause people to react, to contemplate and search for meaning in the sticker". The website also says, by contrast, that those who are familiar with the sticker find humor and enjoyment from it and that those who try to analyze its meaning only burden themselves and may condemn the art as an act of vandalism from an evil, underground cult.