HOGRE
HOGRE is the pseudonym of an anonymous artist who specialises in unauthorised interventions in public
space, marked by irony and controversial shifts in views with respect to the media narrative. He made his
debut in Rome in 2006 by covering Berlusconi’s election billboards in Tufello’s neighbourhood with
insults and red noses. With graffiti and stencils, he has painted in various cities in Italy and Europe.
In 2011 opened their first solo exhibition at Mondo Bizzarro Gallery in Rome, which was followed by
several other solo and group exhibitions (in Italy: Galo Art gallery, Street Levels Gallery, Spazio C21,
Nero Gallery, Misia Arte, Wunderkammern gallery. In London: War Gallery. In Mexico City: Gama Crea).
In 2015 he moved to London, where two years later he published with Dog Section Press ‘Subvertising,
The piracy of outdoor advertising’, a collection of unauthorised interventions on London’s advertising
spaces. In the summer of 2017 his ‘Ecce Homo erectus’ manifesto was installed in Rome two days after
Cardinal Pell was accused of child molestation. The poster was mistaken by a far right politician for an
official communication causing a wave of moral panic in the local and national press.
An anti-terrorist police squad (digos) was assigned to investigate for the charge of “Offence to religion” (article 404 c.p.with a maximum of penalty of 2 years imprisonment) and permanently closed the website hogre.it
dedicated to the artist. In December 2019, together with the British subvertising collective Special Patrol
Group, he launched StealThisPoster at (MACRO) Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome, a web platform
for sharing free of copy-right designs suitable for download and widespread street interventions. Through
this platform he has campaigned for several European activists collectives including Defend Wikileaks,
BerlinvsAmazon, Lucha y Siesta. In 2022, he exhibited and co-curated the exhibition ‘Werbe Pause, the
art of subvertising’ at the Kunstraum Kreuzberg Bethanien in Berlin.
In September 2024 he participated in the group exhibition “Love letters to the city” at Urban Nation in
Berlin.