LIVELLI 3rd EDITION

Description

Livelli 3rd Edition – Screen print Group show

108 pages
14,8 x 21 cm

Varsi Editions by She.Lab

Not Available

Artist info

108

108 (Guido Bisagni) was born in Alessandria in 1978. He started painting approaching traditional graffiti, using several pseudonyms. At the end of the 90s, he has evolved both formally and conceptually and he becomes one of the first European post-graffiti artists working with abstract forms, painting large and mysterious figures that invade abandoned spaces. He was the first writer to use numbers instead of letters for his name. His work has appeared on the streets of Milan, Paris, London, Berlin, New York City, and San Francisco... It was his firm intention to make visual chaos, working also with 3D objects, sounds, and installations. In 2004 he was invited to Paris for Nusign 2.4 One of the first international exhibitions of street art and in 2005 he took part to the Urban Edge Show in Milan. Finally, in 2006 he graduated from the Polytechnic of Milan following design courses. in 2007 he was invited to join the project called Walls inside the Biennale di Venezia. In March 2008 he flew to Los Angeles with Eltono, Dem, Microbo, and other artists to represent Europe in the U.S.A. during the Nomadaz exhibition. "As the street-art boom gained momentum during the early years of the twenty-first century, however, 108 found himself becoming increasingly dismayed by the often banal route it appeared to be taking. In contradistinction, he started to re-explore the abandoned buildings and factories in Alessandria that he had frequented during his youth. The combination of stark concrete walls and rationalist architecture he encountered there, together with the practical necessity of producing something both cheaply and quickly (a factor that had also inspired his use of adhesive stickers), led to the next stage in his artistic journey, what we might call 108’s “black period.” (Rafael Schacter in His "World Atlas of Street Art and Graffiti") Whether it be within the confines of a small room in the abandoned monastery, where the large triangular constructions are most effective and have the effect of warping and playing with the room’s dimensions as the viewer attempts to back away and comprehend the pieces, or as a surreal floating void on a wall beside a busy road. Colors appear again like small pieces that sleep inside the black. 108 collects many solo exhibitions around Italy and Europe, he took part in many of the contemporary festivals and exhibitions like the first Biennale of Urban Art in Moscow (2014) or Mapping the City at the Somerset house of London (2015).

Artist info

Graphic Surgery

Graphic Surgery is a collaborative art duo of Dutch artists Erris Huigens and Gysbert Zijlstra, who share the same passion for graphic, graffiti, modern cities and urban environments. Born 4 days apart from each other, in 1978, Erris and Gysbert discovered this mutual source of inspiration during their educative years at an art academy, and started collaborating in 2000. The work of Graphic Surgery includes paintings and mixed media on canvas, murals in abandoned places and spaces, videos and installations, all created in their signature systematic style of diagonal lines, abstract geometric planes and a mostly monochromatic black and white scheme. Some elements are recurring in their works, such as linear industrial structures and construction cranes. Main focus of their art is on material, depth and layering, and very limited use of color. Different forms and productions of Graphic Surgery owe as much to the urban environment that surrounds them as they do to the history of modern art and design, with De Stijl and Constructivism being clear reference points. Their work has been exhibited in numerous group shows and street art festivals throughout the Netherlands, and also in Paris, Brussels, and Luxemburg. At the moment, Graphic Surgery duo is collaborating on various projects with interaction and multimedia artists. In addition, they run the design agency EHGZ. Graphic Surgery duo is based in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

Artist info

shelab

SHE.LAB is a creative studio specializing in editorial design and the art of handcrafted bookbinding born in 2019 from the idea of designer Paola Pompili with the aim of creating a reality that would become a referral point for book and paper object lovers, thanks to the experimentation of different techniques, materials, and supports. The ten-year collaboration with Galleria Varsi in Rome has evolved over time, making She.Lab an essential component of this project. Starting from January 2022, in fact, She.Lab works inside Varsi Art&Lab's laboratory and embody, together with the screen printing studio 56Fili and the design studio Base/34, its artisanal and productive side. In this space, Paola Pompili and bookbinder Claudia Mosena (who joins the project in 2022) work in synergy to design and create products that feature research, craftsmanship, and uniqueness as their strengths. The studio opens outward during workshops and becomes a place for sharing and disseminating manual skills and traditional workmanship dedicated to the world of bookbinding.

Artist info

STEN LEX

Sten (Rome, 1982) and Lex (Taranto, 1982) realized the first stencil in the streets of Rome in 2001 and are considered among the main diffusers of "Stencil Graffiti" in Italy. The duo is known internationally for having introduced, since 2002, the use of halftone in the stencil process. The graphic elaboration, which they call Hole School, consists in cutting out an image composed of dots or lines: a portrait appears so realistic from a distance, abstract from close up. The subjects of their works are anonymous characters, photographed by themselves or rediscovered in old photographic archives, painted in a black and white stencil, and the result of research on Western photographic portraits from the '60s until today. In 2008, Banksy invited Sten Lex to participate in the Cans Festival in London together with a group of artists specialized in "Stencil Graffiti". Starting from 2010, Sten Lex create stencils cut out on paper and glued on the walls. After years of using both stencil and poster media, the duo created a process they call Stencil Poster. The process consists of posting on the street, a poster made up of lines or dots. The poster is hand cut out on the wall on which it is applied, the paper matrix once cut out, is painted black and finally destroyed to give space to the final work. The concept behind this process is that atmospheric agents, rain, and wind slowly destroy the matrix over time, revealing the final artwork as the matrix dissolves.  The essential meaning of the "stencil", which is considered a technique for reproducing the same image over and over again, is thus brought to the point of paradox in that by destroying the matrix, which is also part of the work, its reproducibility is diminished. Sten Lex’s art is spread all around the world. The work of the duo can be admired on the walls of Austin (TX), Gibellina (IT), Bangkok (THA), Monterrey (MX), and many other cities worldwide. During these almost 20 years of activity, Sten Lex exhibited at the Danysz Gallery of Shanghai, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome (IT), the Caradente Museum in Spoleto (IT), the Centre de la Gravure et de l’Impage imprimée (BE), the Street Art Museum in Saint Petersburg (RU) and La Condition Publique in Roubaix (FR).

Artist info

TELLAS

Tellas was born in 1985 in Cagliari, Sardinia. His artistic journey begins in the harsh lands where he grew up. His work is a personal and intimate vision of the natural elements defining the landscape around him. Each piece is the result of a meditative process combining spatial qualities, shapes, and species of the surrounding environment. He expresses his style through various means. His use of drawing, painting, printing techniques, installations, and audio-video production confirms his aim to create and experiment with different art forms. He participated in many international events. Among the most remarkable there are the La Tour Paris Project, 2013, considered one of the most innovative contemporary art projects worldwide, and Artmossphere, the first Street Art Biennale held in Moscow in 2014, featuring 70 artists from all over the world. In 2015 his work appeared in The Urban Contemporary Art Guide, edited by the Graffiti Art Magazine, where he ranked amongst the world’s best 100 emerging artists of 2015. The same year he completed an extensive public artwork in Cagliari, the Italian Capital of Culture back then. In Rome, he took part in Here, Now, the sixth edition of the city’s Outdoor Festival, while his personal show Clima Estremo was held at Wunderkammern Gallery. The following year he completed several important public artworks in Spain, Finland, and Australia, respectively in Madrid, Helsinki, Albany, and Perth. In 2017 he was in Australia again, working on the mural The Barrier in Townsville, Queensland. Later that year, this piece inspired his exhibition Tropico, held at the Magma Gallery, Bologna. Again in Bologna, in 2019, he exhibited his solo exhibition "Lago" with a new body of works curated by the Magma Gallery. In 2019, together with the Press Press editions, he published "notes" a collection of 180 drawings in a limited edition of only 300 copies. Since 2019 he has confirmed the collaboration with The Jaunt, an important international organization that represents artists from all over the world, involving them in large-scale outdoor projects, institutional exhibitions, and works productions. With The Jaunt, Tellas exhibited in San Francisco at the Legion Project Art Gallery, then in Amsterdam in 2021 at the STRAAT Museum on the occasion of the solo exhibition “Out There Somewhere”.  In 2020 he was invited by Paratissima Art Fair to create a work on a large surface that covers the courtyard of the Centro d'Arte Contemporanea Artiglieria, on the occasion of its reopening in Turin, in the circuit of the important exhibition of Artissima. In addition to Palermo, Rome, and other Italian cities, the latest works can be found in Atlanta (USA), Klaipeda (Lithuania), Delhi (India), Montreal (Canada), and Kaohsiung (Taiwan), France, Ireland, and Spain. His artistic production also includes significant partnerships with important Italian fashion brands, including Ferragamo and Marni. In particular, the multiple collaborations with Marni resulted in the documentary A grande terra do Sertão, presented at the 56th Venice Biennale.

Artist info

Zedz

Zedz was born in Leiden (NL) in 1971. After finishing high school and making graffiti in the public space for several years Zedz starts study at the Gerrit Rietveld Art Academy in Amsterdam and graduates in 1998. Since then he works as an independent artist/designer. Zedz's work mainly consists of abstracted typography, the dimensional approach and style of lettering could be considered his artistic signature. By interfering in public space with huge mural paintings and his recent installation works involving the audience as an integral parto of his work, his work is getting more and more socially engaged. Zedz, also known as Ronald van der Voet, is making graffiti since the mid eighties and his current work is in its essence still strongly related to the pure format of "writing culture" and graffiti while at the same time it is researching and exploring new ways and formats. Whilst not losing touch with some key graffiti principles the work is pushing and pulling the boundaries, crossing over and turning limitations into advantages, generating new thoughts and ideas concerning the topic of expressive lettering and the way we use the urban landscape and take our surroundings for granted. The collaboration with MU (Maurer United Architects) 1999-2002 is a good example of Zedz's more unconventional approach and research methods, and shows how zeds's work walks a thin line between for instance graffiti and architecture. The experimental collaboration resulted in several proposal for "graffiti architecture" which is actually an invention made un in this creative process. In the later stadium this early research resulted also into a series of - temporary - monumental sculptures in the public space functioning as street forniture. the works could be best described as crossover between graffiti and its dimensional environment (architecture) and by creating these works it seems Zedz is exchanging spray cans for building materials which is in some sense also the direction he chooses in his more illustrative studies and studio works. Since his studies at the Academy of Fine Arts Zedz is working n the public space (outdoors) and is exposing work to the public through a more or less underground scene as well as through a more established exhibition/gallery scene. The public installations have appeared on several occasions in diverse European cities and smaller communities (Tunis, Prague, Rome, Manchester). Fields of Zedz's interest are architecture, design, street art and graffiti, public space, philosophy, fashion, robots, the relation between design and physical experiences, interaction design and interaction between different disciplines. The motivation for creating his work is to research his topics in depth and share knowledge.

More info

“Livelli 3rd edition” by 108, Graphic Surgery, Sten Lex, Tellas and Zedz catalog was realized by SheLab and released in 2018 by Varsi Editions. It contains photos of all the silkscreens realized for the show.

Exhibition curators
Arturo Armitrano & Massimo Scrocca

Catalog graphic design
Paola Pompili (SheLab)

Text editing
Venexia Editrice

Photography credits
Francesco Marchini

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