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Slideshow around the World showing a couple of art of skates
May 24 to September 22.
Urban Art Festival for Urban Art Lovers – City of Pécs
Renowned domestic and foreign street art artists present themselves at the Street Up international exhibition in the Zsolnay Cultural District. A skateboarding exhibition titled Art of Skate can be seen in the downtown Pécs Gallery, in addition to hip-hop and skateboarding presentations, professional workshops, lectures, and guided tours, the festival’s program runs until September. In the 21st century, street art as an independent art form is unavoidable. In 2024, the Pécs Zsolnay Örökségkezelé NKft. Pécs Galleries – Visual Arts Center would like to further expand its genre palette.
At the beginning of the summer, with a series of comprehensive urban art exhibitions and a festival, it tries to present the antecedents, domestic and foreign appearances and different trends of the urban art that developed progressively from the 70s, both at m21 and at the Pécs Gallery between May 24 and September 22.
One of the outstanding exhibitions of the event is the ART OF SKATE – skateboarding from California to Pécs exhibition, which presents the history and art of skateboarding from the first attempts until it became an Olympic sport in 2021. The exhibition presents around 150 skateboards made with artistic works, relics of the skateboarding lifestyle, related fashion and works of art, photos and cultural phenomena. In 2022, more than 50,000 visitors saw the exhibition in Paris. It is curated by Philippe Danjean, an independent curator, art specialist and renowned urban art collector. The exhibition can be visited from May 24 to September 15 in the Pécs Gallery.
In the m21 Gallery in Zsolnay Quarter, the title exhibition of the festival, STREET UP, which presents street art works, can be seen from May 30 to September 22, which was created with the cooperation of the international independent curator Yasha Young. The 5 artists he represents in the exhibition are recognized and sought-after creators of international street art: Nuno Viegas from Portugal, Christian Boehmer and Adultremix from Germany, Julien de Casabianca from France, and Millo from Italy, the most mentioned creator of street art books.
At the invitation of the gallery, the French artist Erell, who won a special prize at last year’s LOKART in Pécs, the French-Austrian creative couple Jana and JS, the Polish NDZW and the Romanian Lost Optic, all of whom are participating in street art festivals (such as the annual Vienna Street Art Festival) will come to the exhibition ) well-known and popular creators, as well as the Venezuelan Zeus Salas.
In addition to the international field, the exhibition will also feature outstanding artists of Hungarian street art: Fork Imre, Void, Fat Heat, Gospe, MNU, Mejo, as well as Napush and FSing.
Imre Fork, a cult figure of Hungarian graffiti art, will also be the creator of this year’s Light Carpet covering Janus Pannonius Street at the Zsolnay Light Festival in July. Pécs street art is represented by the works of Renesound.
The conceptual works of the French Société Réaliste, the creative community of Ferenc Gróf and Jean-Baptiste Naudy, which creates conceptual art works from urban signs, scrutinize and reinterpret the signs of social publicity, similar to urban art. Their works mark the possible endpoint of urban art and its meeting with contemporary fine art.
The aim of the Zsolnay Heritage Management Visual Arts Center is to introduce peripheral genres of urban art to the general public. Thus, at this year’s exhibition, visitors can vote on which works they would like to see beyond the walls of the gallery at the next Street UP event.
Not to miss to pop by to see the amazing collection of skate boards on display such as … ones inspired by AC/DC and Vasarely, as well as tribute boards by American pop-art and graffiti artist Keith Haring. Famous New York graffiti artist Lady Pink, Kenny Scharf, Andy Warhol and Cleon Peterson also present themselves in a playful form on these surfaces. Furthermore, the first skateboard prototype, theAmerican skateboarder of the Tokyo Olympics, will be here competition jersey and the medals of the skateboarding race of this year’s Paris Olympics.
(Original snaps from the “Art of Skate” booklet)
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