Mare 139 hit the ground running as he arrived in Berlin for his solo exhibition at Skalitzers Contemporary Art in Berlin. The show titled “Physical Graffiti” Art of the Bboy Dance focuses on the Mare 139’s BBoy Series of drawings and paintings. Referenced in this quote “The Bboy is the physical Graffiti artist, he is the lyrical and kinetic scratch, he is the break beat manifest, the most modern of all dancers.”. Mare draws inspiration from doing live sketch sessions with talented Bboys. He has worked with the worlds pioneers and best, arriving in Berlin he was able to work with Amigo as documented in some of the pictures. The inspiration of master bboy has led Mare to create some amazing new drawings for the show while in Berlin. Mare was also able to paint a piece in the Berlin Hall of Fame again planting his roots in the city.

Carlos Mare has established himself not only as a legendary figure of our cultures history, but also is considered one today’s contemporary masters. Carlos is able to document a treasure of our cultures history the Bboy and its Dance. Manipulating charcoal and paper Carlos is able to define the movement of his subject with a modern aesthetic. Utilizing cubist and futurist influences Carlos uses modern language to document an avante garde artform of dance. This is perfectly described here by Robert Smith “Carlos Mare’s Bboy characters, so refined and visually direct, become coded representations of the dancer’s repertoire of movements and poses. In much the same way that staffed symbols are used to represent the written form of musical notation, so too the simple, gestural icons come to express a visual codification, a defined scale of available movements.”

We have also included some bonus pictures of Jaybo Monk and Carlos Mare working on a collaboration piece. It is amazing to watch great work taking place in real time. If you are lucky enough to be in Berlin make sure you check out Mare’s opening.

GF

 

Skalitzers Contemporary Art presents the first solo exhibition in Berlin by renowned New York-based artist, Carlos Mare, aka Mare139.

Mare began his creative career during the formative era of NYC subway painting between 1975-1985, appearing in the original cult classic documentary Style Wars in 1982. Growing up against the landscape of hip-hop in its evolution, he charted a new discourse about the role and aesthetic of the art form as sculpture in the public space, beginning with letter-based works and progressing to a more modernist interpretation of the graffiti form. Internationally exhibited and collected, his sculptural works are among the most innovative of the post NYC subway graffiti movement.

In 2005, Mare returned to an exploration of the line, introducing a series of Bboy studies inspired by the movement of the Bboy dance and its symbiotic relationship with other improvisational forms of expression born from rhythm, gesture and style.

Mare’s Bboy works marry the abstract, gestural nature of graffiti writing with the motion of the Bboy dance, effortlessly capturing the essence of the subject in new symbolic, linguistic, and spatial formulations. Similar to the constant evolution of a writer’s style, Mare’s studies continue to evolve, as he further explores subjects, mediums and styles.

Exhibiting and lecturing throughout the US and Europe, Mare is active in the promotion of the cultural legacy of urban arts. His works have been exhibited at MOCA in Los Angeles, The Grand Palais in Paris, Whitney Museum at Philip Morris, Brighton University of Art -England and El Museo del Barrio in NYC.

Join us at Skalitzers with the artist for the opening night on Saturday 9th June, and artist talk on Tuesday 12th June.

Skalitzers Contemporary Art
Skalitzer str, 43
Berlin.