NO MORE CREW
A strong trio. Grew up together. Long-standing friendships. Shared experience. Rocket engines. Parallel beginnings. Trajectories that have diverged over time, but remain firmly connected, consecrated by the code of graffiti. The No More Crew brotherhood. An exhibition built around the confrontation of its participants – a trio of friends, all distinct figures, and not only in terms of the Czech art scene. The mutual confrontation comes at no risk. Jan Kaláb, Pasta Oner and Michal Škapa are equals. What they share is tenacity, ambition, drive, vigor, audacity, humor, and every now and then also a wall, as well as mutual friends and their common age. What distinguishes them is their approach, form, tools, the venues of their solo exhibitions, the locations of their respective studios, and the number of their children.
With the soul of an architect, Jan easily conquers the third dimension not only in his murals, but also in his canvases. He has grown to embrace the painter within, and although his forte is the creation of objects he has been chiseling away at geometric abstraction, discovering spaces interior and without, regardless of the clichéd expression “that’s been done.”
The same could be said of Pasta Oner. It is possible to cite the clearly visible sources of inspiration, identify the specific paraphrases. Yet one must also take into account the force and accuracy with which he mirrors the conservative Central European mindset. How spot-on is his commentary on the bad habits of consumerism, or the directness with which he tackles the large format through his short post-pop messages.
Michal Škapa, by contrast, works with the moment of replication, the multiplication of a graphic element, with a hand patently the descendant of an expert graffiti artist. His style is ornamental, rhythmic, abstract and concrete at the same time. He is the draughtsman of his canvases, the transmitter of symbols, creator of expansive mural-format comics with unsettling subject matter. The exhibition No More Crew presents a trio of disparate and yet splendidly and mutually complementary artists. Their work defies being simply the result of the overused epithet “drawing on street art”, and at the same time any confrontation with their work requires such a label. Space, place, city, symbol, sign. Something for everybody.
Wernisaż: 12.10.2017 19:00
Centrum Spotkania Kultur
Plac Teatralny 1
(Wejście od ul. Skłodowskiej)
Wystawa czynna do 10.11.2017
Wtorek - Sobota 12-17
