English Vhils explodes barriers with his art that shakes – DCI

12/12/2014 – 11h47

Reuters

People pass by the Portuguese artist Alexandre work Fed up in Morro da Providencia, in Rio de Janeiro
Photo: Reuters

By Andrei Khalip

LISBON (Reuters) – Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto, known by the pseudonym Vhils, inherited from his days as a graffiti artist, literally shakes the foundations when it explodes gunpowder firecrackers embedded in plaster facades, or use drills to dig brick and concrete.

When the dust settles , impressive wrinkled torn pictures are revealed. Vivid pictures of deep look face the passengers in cities ranging from Sydney to Shanghai, from Moscow to London, from Rio de Janeiro to Honolulu, and many other places.

The fame of the artist, 27 recently extrapolated street art borders, with the organization of his first major solo exhibition in a museum earlier this year. This week he released a video made for the Irish band U2.

The clip for “Raised by Wolves” music, filmed in slow motion to capture the creations of Vhils with explosives in the suburbs of Lisbon, where he was born, integrates design Films of Innocence, “a visionary collection 11 authorship of films of the most visceral urban artists in the world, “according to the description in the U2 website.

Lisbon and its suburbs, with the decadent charm of its dilapidated facades, abandoned warehouses and revolutionary murals of the 1970s covered with layers of propaganda and graffiti that inspired Vhils to change the paint spray cans for tools carving in 2004, but after adding explosives to their arsenal.

“I’ve always been interested in these places that expose some of the city’s fragility, show that everything is ephemeral,” said Vhils Reuters in his studio in Lisbon, mounted in a garage.

THE EXPOSED GUTS

The Art Vhils is often described as destructive, but he considers less destructive of poetry on a paper surface.

Many of his most inner workings are made of layers of old posters, paint and plaster walls removed.

“When digging the bowels of these layers, you expose the bowels of the city … Walls reflect the changes that have happened,” he said.

It was the financial crisis of 2010 in Portugal and southern Europe that inspired him to use explosives “. Sometimes it takes a spark explosions show the historical cycle, bring old layers back to the surface.”

The technique involves loads of gunpowder between 0.5 and 2 grams inserted in holes of varying depths drilled in cement and covered with estufo, took a year to be improved.

The ruptured portrayed by the artist are often ordinary people “who simply struggle to survive.”

“The idea is to make visible those who are virtually invisible in the city, humanizing public spaces,” he said.

Bring this art to the museum meant to overcome the barrier between street art to the conventional art circuit. But he said “this separation, which is limiting for artists, will disappear … there will be more dialogue” thanks to the rich visual heritage available to a new generation through the Internet, even if they are not necessarily art students.

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