June 27 - July 21, 2019
1:00 PM 13:00 Sunday, July 21, 2019 1:00 PM 13:00 Chase Contemporary | 23rd Street 521 West 23rd Street New York, NY, 10011 United States (map) Google Calendar ICS Shepard Fairey, Peace Guard 2, 2016. Mixed media on canvas. 60 x 44". "> Shepard Fairey, Peace Guard 2, 2016. Mixed media on canvas. 60 x 44". Opening Reception: Thursday, June 27th, from 6-8 pm at Chase Contemporary, 521 W23rd Street, NY 10011. RSVP@chasecontemporary.com Chase Contemporary is pleased to announce We Were Here: East Coast x West Coast , a group exhibition of graffiti and street art from New York and California. The exhibition will chronicle the development of street art from the early 1970s graffiti writers to the global presence of today’s street artists. Artists include Blade, Chor Boogie, Crash, Cope2, Shepard Fairey, Richard Hambleton, Keith Haring, LA2, Greg Miller, Retna, Risk, Kenny Scharf, Seen, Swoon, and Twist. The show will be concurrent with the major street art survey Beyond the Streets in Brooklyn curated by Roger Gatsman, which showcases over 150 artists from around the world. We Were Here will run from June 27th through July 21st, 2019. An opening reception will be held on Thursday, June 27th, from 6-8 pm at the gallery’s 521 w. 23rd street location. Street art- both uncommissioned and interventionist- has been around since the beginning of Modernism. However it was the graffiti writers of New York’s South Bronx who unleashed the arena of public art in the early 1970s. The movement was pioneered by the young writers “tagging” (spray painting their names) on New York City subway cars, a time when urban creativity was exploding. At the same time that graffiti was booming and street artists like Basquiat and Haring were becoming international stars, the enigma that was Richard Hambleton was using the urban landscape as a canvas to create conceptual work. Along with his close friends and contemporaries Haring and Basquiat, Hambleton created a sensation in the 1980s art scene. Hambleton was considered the Godfather of this conceptual urban painting. His energetic gestural works were positioned in dark alleys and walls, startling New Yorkers already on the edge in the 1980s.