calendario eventi  :: 

X

21/3/2013

At Home I'm a Tourist

CAC Centro de Arte Contemporaneo, Malaga

The CAC Málaga is presenting the exhibition At Home I’m a Tourist, comprising a selection of toys and editions from the collection of Selim Varol, a young collector of Turkish origin who lives in Dusseldorf and who owns one of the largest collections of contemporary toys and urban art not just in Europe but in the world today, numbering more than 15,000 objects. Varol’s collection is defined by the playful, comic and subversive nature of the pieces and by the close relation it reveals between art and daily life.

Selim Varol began to collect when still a child but it was with his discovery and acquisition of Japanese designer toys in the 1990s that his collection began to take shape. His interests have grown and evolved over time, as a result of which he now collects works of art by creative figures associated with urban art and street culture.

Arising from the graffiti scene in New York and Philadelphia in the late 1960s, this type of urban art now implies a much broader panorama involving all forms of street art and encompassing a range of techniques (mural stencils, posters, stickers, etc) and different ideological backgrounds. Following Andy Warhol and Marcel Duchamp, urban art aims to take artistic creation out of the museum and bring it closer to the public, either using a more commercial or a more subversive viewpoint. The repetition of iconic, commercial images through the methodology of advertising, which is the defining nature of these works, is closely associated with the Pop artists whose works have been appropriated by street artists in order to de-contextualise them, combine them or alter them to give them a critical sense. Like Jean-Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring before them, the members of this movement transform their “vandalistic” creations into works of art.

Many of the works and artists represented in the Selim Varol collection and now on display at the CAC Málaga are well known for their interventions in public spaces. With his iconic poster of HOPE Shepard Fairey worked on Barack Obama’s 2008 election campaign.
An artist difficult to classify and one who began his career associated with skate culture, Shepard Fairey makes use of intentionally simple, popular or propagandistic images with a political or social element in order to question the world around him and to draw attention to issues that concern him such as the abuse of power and the commercialisation of culture. The French artist JR, who won the TED (Technology, Entertainment and Design to change the World) Prize in 2011 became internationally known in 2008 with his film 28 millimetres: women are heroes, which was made in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. JR’s projects use large-format photographic portraits installed in unexpected places and on unusual surfaces (trains, buildings, bridges, roofs, etc), which encourage reflection through the faces of these individuals who normally pass unnoticed.

His works combine art and action and focus on themes such as commitment, freedom, identity and limits, as can be seen in the mural designed especially for the CAC Málaga. The New York artist KAWS, whose influence has been crucial for the Varol collection, moves on the fine line between the art of illustration and advertisements, basing his limited editions of vinyl games on the appropriation of popular characters from cartoons, which he modifies and manipulates, adding his own unmistakeable identity to them.

The present exhibition at the CAC Málaga conveys the spirit of the new generations through a selection of more than 1,000 works by a large number of artists who are key names in urban art and designer toys, including JR, Banksy, KAWS, Daniel & Geo Fuchs, Shepard Fairey, Phil Frost, Blek le Rat and D*Face.

Selim Varol’s collection has a dual intent: preserving a childhood enthusiasm and documenting the culture of his generation (Hip-Hop, Punk, urban art etc). In the collector’s own words: “My collection, that’s me – my childhood, my friends, my heroes, my role models, what I enjoy, what moves me. Pictures from my journey: ‘At home I’m a tourist’”.

Press contact: Elena Padrón Comunications and press coordinator assisted by Almudena Ríos prensa2@cacmalaga.org

CAC Centro de Arte Contemporaneo
C/ Alemania, s/n 29001 Malaga Spain
Opening hours (from 22nd June to 20 20th September)
Tuesday to Sunday: from 10.00 to 20.00 h.
Hours summer (from June 26 to September 10 inclusive): From Tuesday to Sunday from 10.00 to 14.00 and 17.00 to 21.00.
Monday closed
Visitors are asked to leave the galleries 15 minutes before the building is closed.
Free entrance

stampa

permanent link