Ken Sortais |

Following the success of the 2014 exhibition Futurismo Ancestral: An Offering to Peru by Sixe Paredes (featured here), the collaborative arts organisation Approved by Pablo is curating a new exhibition entitled ‘Mapping the City‘ at Somerset House in London.

Over 50 internationally recognised artists from the street art and graffiti scene including Shepard Fairey, Ron English, Swoon, Momo, Remed take over the New Wing of Somerset House to share their knowledge of each city’s secrets and urban landscape through a variety of media from illustrations, paintings, sculptures, installations and videos.

Mapping the City - Somerset House

Full list of participating artists include: 108 (IT), 3TTMAN (ES), Aryz (ES), Augustine Kofie (US), Boris Tellegen (NL), Brad Downey (US), Caleb Neelon (US), Cali Thornhill Dewitt (US), Chu (AR), Cleon Peterson (US), Cult of RAM:ELL:ZEE (UK), Egs (FI), Ekta (SE), Eltono (FR), Erosie (NL), Filippo Minelli (IT), Gold Peg (UK), Graphic Surgery (NL), Herbert Baglione (ES), Honet (FR), Horfee (FR), Huskmitvan (DK), Isauro Huizar (DK), Isaac Tin Wei Lin (US), James Jarvis (UK), June (US), Ken Sortais (FR), Les Freres Ripoulain (FR), Malarko (UK), Mathieu Tremblin (FR), Martin Tibabuzo (AR), Mike Ballard (UK), Momo (US), Mudwig (UK), Nano184 (ES), Nug (SE), OX (FE), Petro (UK), Psychoze (FR), Remed (FR), Ron English (US), Russel Maurice (UK), Shantell Martin (UK), Shepard Fairey (US), Sixe Parades (ES), Spok (ES), Susumu Mukai (JP), Swoon (US), Tim Head (UK), Will Sweeney (UK)

View the full set of pics here

To complement the exhibition, Somerset House and A(by)P are hosting a diverse series of events, including a series of film and music evenings, artists talks, performances and interactive workshops, all inspiring visitors to re-evaluate their own relationship to the cities in which they live. View the full program of events here

Mapping the city
Somerset House
Until 15 February 2015

For the third instalment of the Lasco Project ( covered here) curator Hugo Vitrani invited seven internationally renowned graffiti artists to infiltrate the Palais de Tokyo‘s cavernous basement level for the first time.

LA based illustrator Cleon Peterson created a large black and white mural depicting urban violence and social tension with policemen and crack addicts.

Parisian graffiti artists Horfé and Ken Sortais intervention is inspired by the underground Japanese manga “Violence Jack,” created in 1973 by Go Nagai, in which heroes, resistance fighters, victims and survivors-turned-executioners in a post-apocalyptic, violent urban setting.

Stencils of Berlin based artist Evol transform the inner walls of the Palais de Tokyo into miniature buildings with balconies, windows and satellite dishes as a pointed comment on the failure of an architectural and political utopia.

Arrested by the police’s anti-graffiti task force in 2012, Parisian artist Cokney, who was tried and was fined over 200,000 euro for his illegal paintings on trains and subway cars, decided to combine paintings with the estimates, complaints and reports generated during his trial.

Portugese artist Alexandre Farto, aka Vhils, used destruction as a creative force to chisel an anonymous portrait into walls, like for his signature “Scratching the Surface” series.

On a wall visible to the public, NY graffiti legend Futura 2000 created a minimalist version of his usual style with a composition of stripes and stencilled dots.

Last but not least, on the underground tunnels not accessible to the public, is an inter-generational dialog between Futura, Mode 2, Lek & Sowat called “Underground does not exist anymore”.