At Palazzo Brami, in via Emilia San Pietro 21, Spazio C21, a place of artistic research and study of the global graffiti and urban art movement, is hosting the exhibition ‘Paleontology. Horfee, Saeio, Conie; Paris 2013 – 2017’ until September 14. This is not a commercial exhibition – as is customary during the year – but a focus on the production of three members of Pal – an acronym for Peace and Love – the most influential crew of writers in the Parisian scene of the first two decades of our century. Horfee (Paris, 1983) is called Antwan and is a painter. He attended the Academy of Fine Arts in Paris but his roots are elsewhere; Conie (Ken Sortais, Saint-Denis, 1983) drew simple letters and grotesque cartoonish characters, made plastic by well-tightened curves; Saeio was called Paul Bourgineau (Paris, 1987-2017), he had noble origins and died before he could turn 30, while his art was at its peak.
The exhibition inside the Reggio space, managed by Sandra Varisco, pays tribute to the talent of three artists through the presentation of unpublished paintings, made on commission, sculptures, some shots by the crew’s official photographer and some of the most significant publications made by the artists during their period of maximum creative splendor.
This is the first – albeit small – exhibition dedicated to the main members of the Pal crew, accompanied by a critical text by Andrea Ceresa.
“The method of historical research – writes Ceresa – requires a temporal gap from the object of study to acquire an adequate critical distance. This is true for PALeontology, the branch of natural sciences that studies the Pals and their living environment on Earth, namely Paris. The time span examined in this exhibition extends from 2013 to 2017, the golden age of the Pal crew, a time when a large quantity of images and content began to circulate online alongside a multitude of publications printed on poor paper in limited runs. The focus is on three individuals from the PAL group – Horfee, Saeio and Conie – also observed through the lens of a fourth, Esso, who has always been an internal reporter of the crew’s chronicles”. The exhibition at SpazioC21 focuses on a peculiar characteristic of the trio, the ability of each to assert themselves in two different and complementary environments, namely writing and art. On the occasion of the Finissage, on September 14th from 6 pm, a fanzine with unpublished content related to the exhibition will be presented.