Above Ground: Art from the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection @ Museum of the City of New York

Above Ground 

Art from the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection

Museum of the City of New York 

November 22, 2024 – August 10, 2025

“There are people who see the graffiti experience as a vocation of adolescence, rites of passage without a sense of direction... But I saw it early on as a catalyst to develop as a painter and explore the other horizons outside of a 40-foot subway car.” – Lee Quiñones

The Museum of the City of New York presents Above Ground: Art from the Martin Wong Graffiti Collection, an extraordinary exhibition tracing the evolution of graffiti art from its roots on the streets of New York City in the early 1970s to recognition and celebration in galleries and museums worldwide. 

Above Ground showcases work drawn from the Museum's substantial graffiti art collection, complemented by loans from private collections. It highlights the transition many graffiti artists made from tagging subway cars to creating paintings on canvas, marking a pivotal moment in the movement's evolution as it entered broader public awareness and significantly influenced global culture. 

The exhibition highlights many never seen donated 30 years ago by the visionary artist and collector Martin Wong – including works in aerosol, ink, and other mediums by key figures such as Keith Haring, Futura 2000, Fab 5 Freddy, Rammellzee, Lee Quiñones, Haze, Crash, Lady Pink, and Tracy 168.

“Above Ground celebrates the 30th anniversary of Martin Wong’s donation to the museum and the 10th anniversary of MCNY’s initial City as Canvas exhibition,” says Sean Corcoran, Senior Curator of Prints and Photographs at the Museum of the City of New York. “This show offers a renewed and expanded look at graffiti’s journey from NYC streets to the most prestigious galleries around the world.”

The exhibition is organized into several sections, highlighting the origins of graffiti and its broader cultural impact, particularly the Post-Graffiti movement. The exhibition touches on the East Village scene, and the impact of early indie galleries such as Fun Gallery, Fashion Moda, and others that showcased graffiti on canvas. It considers the art form’s initial international success and underscores the legacy of Martin Wong and his commitment to preserving the art form.

Select exhibition highlights include:

• Martha Cooper’s photographs of work by Keith Haring and more;

• Lee Quiñones’ monumental painting, A Life Takes a Life (1983);

• TRACY 168 from ESSY Studio sketch pad (1980);

• Rammellzee’s Atomic Note (1986) and Atomic Futurism (1987);

• A-One’s spray paint on canvas work, Beauty of a Beast (In Memory of Bear 167) (1987);

• Photographs from Henry Chalfant’s Subway Art series, including Skeme and Daze and Kel Crash;

• DAZE spray paint on canvas pieces, Phobia (1983) and French Dream. Life Below Aerosol (1984);

• Several pieces from KAWS’ collection, including DONDI’s Bishop of Battle (1985); and Martin Wong’s Sharp and Dottie (1984);

• A documentary by Charlie Ahearn on Martin Wong’s collection, offers a deeper understanding of the art and its historical context.

Stephanie Hill Wilchfort, Ronay Menschel Director and President of the Museum of the City of New York, adds, “Born in New York City, graffiti is now a global phenomenon This exhibition not only celebrates the artistic contributions of graffiti artists, reflects the dynamic and everevolving culture of our city, and explores how New York’s art and popular culture influences the world.”

MUSEUM OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK

www.mcny.org

OSGEMEOS: Endless Story @ Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

OSGEMEOS: Endless Story 

Hirshhorn Museum, Washington DC

May 18, 2024 – July 6, 2025

The Hirshhorn Presents the first US museum survey and largest US exhibition of work by identical twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo (b. São Paulo, Brazil, 1974), known globally as OSGEMEOS—Portuguese for “the twins.” The yearlong, full-floor presentation brings together approximately 1,000 artworks, photographs, and archival materials to highlight the trajectory of their collaborative, multidisciplinary practice, including the roots of their fantastical artistic language inspired by their upbringing in urban Brazil. OSGEMEOS: Endless Story spotlights the artists’ playful combination of universal themes with magical elements drawn from their heritage, urban art and graffiti traditions, and shared imagination.

“We are inspired to collaborate with OSGEMEOS to share their multigenre practice that, by dissolving art world hierarchies, defines what it means to be an artist in the 21st century,” said Hirshhorn Director Melissa Chiu. “Since childhood, OSGEMEOS have adapted graffiti traditions to create an increasingly complex and immersive studio practice rooted in their brotherhood: one thought process shared between two people for more than forty years.”

Featuring large-scale paintings on wood and canvas, monumental sculptures and room-sized installations that incorporate light, movement and music, “Endless Story” will fill the Hirshhorn’s sweeping third-floor galleries. To highlight OSGEMEOS’s interest in fusing the real with the fantastic, central place will be given to dreamlike worlds including “The Moon Room” (2022), built specifically for exhibition spaces and featuring sound, colorful architecture and custom wallpaper. The presentation also will include scores of rarely seen drawings illuminating the growth of their creative practice, from the walls of their childhood home to freeways and building façades to global galleries, alongside documentation of their outdoor graffiti and murals.

“We are delighted to accept the invitation to fill the Hirshhorn’s circular galleries with our story and hope to inspire a new generation to share their own stories,” said OSGEMEOS. “‘Endless Story’ will trace our trajectory from childhood across different media. The survey will explore how we developed our visual style, highlight our influences and present the diversity of language. We’re very happy to showcase this work in our first retrospective exhibition at a museum in the United States.”

“Endless Story” frames OSGEMEOS’s origin story in São Paulo with rarely seen early sketches and introduces Tritrez, a mystical universe the artists invented as children and continue to populate with their colorful imaginings and signature large-headed figures. Sources of inspiration, such as their mother’s embroidery, American hip-hop, breakdancing and graffiti, life, nature and dreams, sci-fi and the supernatural, as well as music, feature throughout the galleries. Many works have never been shown outside Brazil, including “The Tritrez Altar” (2020), a vast rainbow-colored structure housing sculptures of OSGEMEOS’s trademark characters. Other highlights include a colossal handmade zoetrope devised in 2014 that, when activated, animates OSGEMEOS’s world in the spirit of pre-cinema days. In addition, more than 30 paintings from lenders across the United States demonstrate the breadth of the artists’ practice.

OSGEMEOS (b. São Paulo, Brazil, 1974; live and work in São Paulo), whose name means “the twins” in Portuguese, are a collaborative art duo composed of twin brothers Gustavo and Otavio Pandolfo. As children, the brothers developed a distinct way of communicating through artistic language, but it was with the introduction of hip-hop culture in the 1980s that OSGEMEOS began to use art as a way to share their dynamic and magical universe with the public. Combining historical and contemporary elements of Brazilian culture with graffiti, hip-hop, music, dreams and international culture, the artists have created an expansive body of work that includes murals, paintings, sculpture, site-specific installations and video. They use a symbolic visual language often inspired by dreams that, as twins, they claim to share. In addition to the use of bright colors and elaborate patterns, they are best known for their paintings featuring long-limbed figures with thin outlines, enlarged faces and simplified features. The use of doors, canvases, and mirrors, both literal—they paint directly onto discarded doors and incorporate reflective surfaces into their works—and as motifs, signal access to another realm or an entry point to the psyche, pulling viewers into their surreal and chimerical world.

“OSGEMEOS: Endless Story” is curated by Marina Isgro, Associate Curator of Media and Performance Art at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, with the support of Curatorial Assistant CJ Greenhill Caldera.

OSGEMEOS: Endless Story

Exhibition Catalogue

Rizzoli Electa, 2024

The exhibition is accompanied by the first major English-language monograph of OSGEMEOS’ work, copublished by Rizzoli. The fully illustrated 344-page catalogue will feature nearly 350 illustrations and smartphone-enabled Hirshhorn Eye video activations, as well as original contributions by Isgro, Alan Ket, Peter Michalski, and Marguerite Itamar Harrison, plus interviews with the artists by Jochen Volz and Chiu.

HIRSHHORN MUSEUM 

Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden 

Independence Ave. and 7th St., SW, Washington, DC 20260 

www.hirshhorn.si.edu

Jayme Burtis / André Butzer @ Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles - Painters of the San Gabriel Mountains pt. 2

Jayme Burtis / André Butzer

Painters of the San Gabriel Mountains pt. 2

Nino Mier Gallery, Los Angeles

November 6, 2022 – January 7, 2023

Painters of the San Gabriel Mountains pt. 2 is a joint exhibition of Jayme Burtis and André Butzer, both of whom founded the eponymous artist group.

Growing up in Venice, California, JAYME BURTIS found himself at the center of the original and now legendary Venice Beach graffiti, skate and surf scene in the mid-1980s. Under the pseudonym VISION, he began spraying to revolt against, celebrate and shape the built environment around him. The dense, mural-like aesthetics of graffiti still influence the graphic, irreverent world of Jayme Burtis’s paintings and drawings. He employs a variety of materials, from watercolor and pencil to spray paint, acrylic, and charcoal.

His multilayered block-letters of graffiti with grotesque, humorous figures with bulging eyes and hanging tongues, often toting knives, encounter small abstract canvases by ANDRÉ BUTZER—making the exhibition a genuine testimony to Jayme Burtis’ and André Butzer’s friendship, mutual respect and artistic explorations.

NINO MIER GALLERY LOS ANGELES 

Glassell Park, 2700 W Ave 34, Los Angeles CA 90065

www.miergallery.com

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Miss Van : Expo Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris

Miss Van

Galerie Magda Danysz, Paris

12 avril - 13 mai 2003

Jeune graffiti-artiste toulousaine de 28 ans, MISS VAN crée un nouveau genre d'art urbain en peignant de coquines poupées sur les murs des villes.

Avec leurs yeux en amandes, leurs regards provocateurs et leurs bouches en cœur, les visages des miss attirent l'œil. Mais ce sont également leurs formes généreuses et leurs tenues sexy qui les rendent attirantes. Très colorées et originales, ces jolies poupées dégagent une chaleur et un érotisme qui égayent les murs des villes. Les rues de Paris, Bruxelles ou encore Londres servent déjà de lieu d'exposition à Miss Van, toujours attirée par l'interdit.

En exhibant ses peintures, Miss Van instaure un concept novateur déviant du graffiti traditionnel majoritairement masculin. Ses poupées sont le reflet d'elle-même, de ses émotions, de son caractère. Vanessa et ses miss fusionnent, évoluent ensemble dans un seul et même univers. Son travail se caractérise par une perpétuelle recherche de l'esthétisme et par la féminité qui traduit une envie de réelle séduction. " Nous sommes les poupées de Miss Van, rondes, voluptueuses, colorées. Nous aimons troubler, scandaliser et surtout réveiller les fantasmes de ceux qui nous regardent. Laissez vous tenter… "

GALERIE MAGDA DANYSZ

19 rue Emile Durkheim, 75013 Paris

www.magda-gallery.com