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À propos de l’oeuvre: This work takes up Vhils' traditional process of "scratching the surface", which consists of removing the thickness formed by a pile of posters laminated in the street to reveal each layer of which it is composed. In so doing, he brings to light the different layers of history piled up beneath the posters, like an archaeologist of the contemporary. A portrait also stands out against this poster background, which is itself geometrically worked. By inscribing portraits, Vhils aims to bring man back to the heart of the city, to give him back a place he seems to have lost in the face of unbridled urbanization.
À propos de l’artiste : Alexandre Farto, alias Vhils, Portuguese artist born in 1987. Lives and works in Lisbon (Portugal). He became active in Lisbon's graffiti scene in the early 2000s. In 2008, Banksy invited him to take part in the Cans Festival in London, where his work was immediately recognized and celebrated as one of the most innovative on the urban scene in recent years. Today, he exhibits at major institutions around the world, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the CAFA Art Museum in Beijing, and the Cincinnati Contemporary Art Center, which is devoting its first monographic exhibition to him in the United States in 2020. Until September 2022, the MAAT (Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology) in Lisbon is dedicating a monumental, immersive exhibition to him, entirely focused on video. In it, the artist develops a new language, presenting an image of the city in slow motion.
Avis de l’expert : Avec sa série Ekphrasis, Vhils poursuit son exploration de la mémoire urbaine à travers une esthétique de l’effacement et de la révélation. Ekphrasis Series nr.3 reprend les motifs caractéristiques de l’artiste : superpositions d’affiches lacérées, fragments d’images et composition géométrique qui laissent progressivement émerger une figure humaine. Cette tension entre destruction et reconstruction est au cœur de sa pratique depuis ses débuts. L’œuvre illustre parfaitement la capacité de Vhils à transformer les traces de la ville en portraits chargés d’humanité. Le contraste entre la richesse des textures, héritées des couches d’affichage urbain, et la silhouette presque fantomatique du personnage crée une image à la fois puissante et poétique.
