Marika Lion – FIRST ON LINE
The negotiations with which Arcadia wants to become a pioneer in the urban art market have been conducted with the utmost confidentiality by choice of the owner himself, who wants very little to be known about himself. A kind of patron unaccustomed to the lights of the curatorial world, but one who has been able to bring some of the best-known young talents to the fore, even abroad. A mister x patron who, following somewhat in the footsteps of Banksy, who is even more notorious because he is anonymous, has granted the Arcadia Auction House part of his precious collection, with the intention of proposing all the facets of a heterogeneous art, comprising thousands of codes. A provocation? An operation aimed at unmasking the gradual passage of urban art from rebellion to business, from counterculture to mainstream? Not exactly.
Certainly today we are a long way from the days of Keith Haring or Jean-Michel Basquiat, when graffiti was pure rebellion and communication against the mainstream. In 2016, street artists are hired by municipal administrations to redevelop the suburbs, or even go on show at important museums, much to their discontent, such as the exhibition dedicated to Banksy at Palazzo Cipolla until 4 September, or the Bologna exhibition that will close soon and that has hung on the walls of Palazzo Pepoli - after removing them from the city streets - walls, shutters, slabs, stones, wooden planks with paintings by Blu, Banksy, Ericailcane, Invader, Dran, Os Gemeos, Obey, Ron English on them. The intention of the Arcadia Auction House, admittedly still immature but which precisely because of this freshness can afford to be more risky, is not so much provocation as the possibility of providing the collector with a key to interpreting a type of art that is so heterogeneous and complex that it is often difficult to fit into economic parameters. There is frequent controversy as to why so-called graffiti artists too easily go from giving away their works made on city walls, to then having them paid for handsomely by gallery owners when made on other media.
The idea that Arcadia wants to focus on on 20 June is that of the double code of urban art: an art that was born underground and is therefore fast, athletic, bodily and caducous because it is exposed to the elements; but also an art that has evolved into various currents and styles, acquiring a qualitative exoskeleton that might be worth investing in as one does for the well-known names on the contemporary scene, which are and will always be equally present at auction.
Urban art undoubtedly remains a public eye, whether it is realised on city walls, on objects or on canvas. The Street Art section of Arcadia Auction No. 3 is therefore not a provocation. It is rather a test of that famous Van Gogh ear, metaphorically quoted by Basquiat himself.
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Street Art at auction, a provocation?
On Monday 20 June, the young Auction House will offer an evening auction of paintings and objects created by some of the most famous Italian street artists of the moment in the premises of Palazzo Celsi - A provocation? A bold move, which is not afraid of collectors, despite the fact that there are more than one unknown. In fact, there is no official name behind the provenance of the works, but the names of the artists who will go up for auction are known: Alice Pasquini, Mauro Pallotta, Diamond, Solo, Jerico, Mirco Marcacci and Mauro Sgarbi.The negotiations with which Arcadia wants to become a pioneer in the urban art market have been conducted with the utmost confidentiality by choice of the owner himself, who wants very little to be known about himself. A kind of patron unaccustomed to the lights of the curatorial world, but one who has been able to bring some of the best-known young talents to the fore, even abroad. A mister x patron who, following somewhat in the footsteps of Banksy, who is even more notorious because he is anonymous, has granted the Arcadia Auction House part of his precious collection, with the intention of proposing all the facets of a heterogeneous art, comprising thousands of codes. A provocation? An operation aimed at unmasking the gradual passage of urban art from rebellion to business, from counterculture to mainstream? Not exactly.
Certainly today we are a long way from the days of Keith Haring or Jean-Michel Basquiat, when graffiti was pure rebellion and communication against the mainstream. In 2016, street artists are hired by municipal administrations to redevelop the suburbs, or even go on show at important museums, much to their discontent, such as the exhibition dedicated to Banksy at Palazzo Cipolla until 4 September, or the Bologna exhibition that will close soon and that has hung on the walls of Palazzo Pepoli - after removing them from the city streets - walls, shutters, slabs, stones, wooden planks with paintings by Blu, Banksy, Ericailcane, Invader, Dran, Os Gemeos, Obey, Ron English on them. The intention of the Arcadia Auction House, admittedly still immature but which precisely because of this freshness can afford to be more risky, is not so much provocation as the possibility of providing the collector with a key to interpreting a type of art that is so heterogeneous and complex that it is often difficult to fit into economic parameters. There is frequent controversy as to why so-called graffiti artists too easily go from giving away their works made on city walls, to then having them paid for handsomely by gallery owners when made on other media.
The idea that Arcadia wants to focus on on 20 June is that of the double code of urban art: an art that was born underground and is therefore fast, athletic, bodily and caducous because it is exposed to the elements; but also an art that has evolved into various currents and styles, acquiring a qualitative exoskeleton that might be worth investing in as one does for the well-known names on the contemporary scene, which are and will always be equally present at auction.
Urban art undoubtedly remains a public eye, whether it is realised on city walls, on objects or on canvas. The Street Art section of Arcadia Auction No. 3 is therefore not a provocation. It is rather a test of that famous Van Gogh ear, metaphorically quoted by Basquiat himself.
FIRSTONLINE LINK