Some of the greats of contemporary art, including Banksy, Basquiat, and Keith Haring, share a wall in the heart of Plaza de Castilla from today until May 3. The Canal Foundation has just opened Urban Art: From the Origins to Banksy, a free exhibition that reviews half a century of graffiti and street art through more than sixty original works by the names that have turned walls into the great canvas of the 21st century.
The exhibition brings together pieces by SEEN, Crash, Blek le Rat, JR, Invader, Os Gêmeos, Shepard Fairey/OBEY, Vhils and, of course, Banksy, as well as a strong representation of Spanish artists such as SUSO33, El Xupet Negre and PichiAvo. In total, more than sixty original works including canvases, silkscreen prints, collages, sculptures, manipulated photographs, and media typical of urban culture, designed to show how the quick gesture of the spray can has been translated into museum formats without losing any of its political and poetic power. The selection functions as a “who’s who” of international urban art, with pieces that are rarely seen together in Madrid.
A journey in five stages (plus a Banksy room)
The exhibition is organized into five historical stages, from the early practices of self-affirmation linked to graffiti to the sophistication of current techniques and discourses. First come the signatures and tags of 1960s and 1970s New York, painted trains, hip hop culture, and graffiti as a cry for identity in invisible neighborhoods; then come the 1980s, with Basquiat and Haring jumping from the street to the gallery and proving that urban art could also be hung in a museum. The tour moves on to the global expansion of street art, the emergence of stencils, the activist dimension, and the new generations that use the city as a space for criticism, memory, or play.
In addition to these five sections, there is a monographic section dedicated to Banksy, which functions almost as a small exhibition within the exhibition. Here, some of his most recognizable images are reviewed (girls with balloons, rats, kissing policemen, protesters throwing bouquets of flowers) and an analysis is made of how an anonymous artist has managed to turn each intervention into a global media event, forever changing the relationship between art, social media, and public space.
From the street to the museum (without being completely tamed)
One of the keys to the proposal is that it is not limited to hanging graffiti on a white wall: the Canal Foundation presents the exhibition as a visual essay on how a movement considered vandalism has ended up institutionalized, without completely losing its edge. The exhibition texts and the installation itself emphasize this constant tension between rebellion and institutionalization: many of the works on display were born out of contexts of protest, inequality, or struggle for urban space, and visitors now encounter them in a controlled environment, which raises uncomfortable questions about who has the final say. The exhibition discusses art, but also gentrification, mural tourism, and marketing strategies that have turned graffiti into a creative city attraction.
SUSO33 appears as a pioneer of “action painting” in public spaces, with spectral figures and works that spill over the wall; El Xupet Negre, an icon of the logo turned character, represents the more pop and playful side; and PichiAvo takes the dialogue between graffiti and classical sculpture to large-format pieces that have traveled around the world. Their presence reminds us that Madrid and other Spanish cities not only consume international street art, but also export it.