For the Love of Freedom

A museum exhibition focusing solely on Graffiti Art has never before been organised in Finland – at least the graffiti writers feel overshadowed by Street Art and other forms of visual arts. Graffiti Art differs from Street Art in both tradition, attitude as well as through its aesthetic aims.

Letters are at the heart of graffiti, usually the writer’s or crew’s tag. Writers usually use marker pens or spray paint, which requires more skill and experience, as their materials. In Street Art the medium and materials change to suit the concept of the artwork. The letter-based images that spread out into the world from Philadelphia, New York and other major U.S. cities, has grown from the marking of territory to large-scale pieces, but still, their creators call themselves writers.

The exhibition For the Love of Freedom presents work from the international superstar MadC and about twenty front-runners of Finnish Graffiti Art. Visitors can also view a photographic journey into the history of Finnish graffiti. Stylistically the artworks move from the ‘old school’ influences, that arrived in Finland with hip hop, to abstract colour surfaces and glass sculptures which lean towards the post graffiti movement.

Lectures:

• 5.8. MadC | Claudia Walde: The Concept of Style (in English)
• In Finnish:
  • 13.9. Jouni Väänänen: Condemned buildings as the playing field for art and culture
  • 27.9. Jani Tolin: The history of graffiti from the 1970’s to the present
  • 4.10. Anssi Arte: Forms of Rocking – the established typefaces of graffiti

The lectures are arranged in collaboration with the Kerava Youth College.