The Ghost Galerie is inaugurating its Parisian space with an exhibition event highlighting the close connection between graffiti and contemporary art.

Ghost Galerie: 25 Artists And 40 Works, Pioneers And Current

A filiation. Pioneers and superstar artists – the recent history of graffiti can be read through the resounding success of its artists. Names that now sit in the pantheon of contemporary artists and who, through collaborations with luxury and fashion houses, have been able to bring their art into various universes.

These names are those of Dondi White, who has collaborated with Off-white, Space Invader, Josh Sperling or that of Futura 2000, who has notably collaborated with Hennessy, and on a capsule collection by Comme des Garçons.

And now, the Ghost Galerie in Marseille is inaugurating its Parisian space with the exhibition “Nos Fantômes” or “Our Ghosts”; an exhibition that succeeds in tracing the history of Graffiti, from the first American pioneers to its most recent ambassadors, and especially the so-called post-graffiti movement.

“The first works on canvas by major figures of the New York graffiti are rare physical historical witnesses of the beginnings of an unbridled and conquering popular expression, which has turned global and is still alive today. These post-graffiti works, produced by the most active graffiti artists on walls and subways in the early 1980s at the invitation of the most cutting-edge New York galleries of the moment (Sidney Janis, Annina Nosei, Tony Shafrazi) reveal the evolution of their practice in the privacy of the workshop. Therefore, these more personal paintings on canvas give us a glimpse the artists’ own ghosts, those who inhabit their works,” notes Jérôme Pauchant from the Ghost Gallery.

It is true that the passage from the intimacy of a studio to the big limitless stage of the street has had a considerable impact on the contemporary urban landscape. True spontaneous art, destined to all, graffiti exposes to the eyes of the world the expression of its own time, devoid of filters and frames.

The exhibition Nos Fantômes puts side by side a sharp selection of works by contemporary artists where we can read the influence of graffiti, but also and above all the socio-cultural context in which these works emerged. Here is what is behind the evanescent title of this exhibition …

“Our cultural references are so many ghosts that haunt us and allow us to discover and decipher the references of artists themselves haunted by their personal histories, their cultures and their own sensibilities” states Ghost Galerie.

The Parisian space is thus discovered as the lair of contemporary art – uninhibited and yet loaded with social and political questions … An artistic space above all where we meet the works of Daniel Arsham, Sam Francis, Henry Chalfan and so, Todd James, Dondi White, Space Invader, Josh Sperling and Futura 2000. Works that interact with each other to better immerse the visitor in the heart of the relationship between street-art, fragile and ephemeral, and contemporary art, protected and exhibited in the galleries.