About

Tate Modern, London
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Blu

Blu

Blu's highly-detailed work cuts a section from a smiling face, revealing macabre inner workings. Painted using only regular household paint, the limited colour palette allows him to emphasize the importance of drawing within his practice.

Nunca

Nunca

Nunca has painted a indigenous Brazilian figure drinking a cup of tea. His work often takes inspiration from ancient traditions native to his home country, Brazil. This image refers to the artist's view of this project at Tate, and of bringing street artists in to an art institution - the cup of tea is a playful joke at the expense of the British.

Os Gêmeos

Os Gêmeos

Os Gêmeos have painted one of their classic “giant” figures. The figure is naked apart from a balaclava style mask, and is holding in his hand a clutch of ripped out CCTV cameras.
The naked figure hiding his face perhaps relates to the artists' desire to communicate publicly whilst remaining anonymous.

Faile

Faile

Faile’s comic-book-style Native American smashing through a wall of logos and imagery symbolises the artists’ desire to bring truth and honesty to the viewer.
The piece was made in sections in the artists’ New York studio and pasted directly to the wall. There is also a marble sculpture of Faile's archetypical “Bunny Boy” figure directly below this work.

JR

JR

JR’s paste-up image shows a black man holding what, on first glance, appears to be a gun. On closer inspection it is in fact revealed as a video camera.
The deliberately aggressive and confrontational image forces us to reassess our assumptions, both exposing and counteracting negative media stereotypes.

Sixeart

Sixeart

The colours of Sixeart's spray-painted work are particularly bright because of the white underpainting beneath. Despite the typically striking graphic look of the work, it also contains fine detail such as the small fishbones falling from the fantastic animal's claws

In the first commission to use the building's iconic river façade, and the first major public museum display of street art in London, Tate Modern presents the work of six internationally acclaimed artists whose work is intricately linked to the urban environment:

Blu from Bologna, Italy; the artist collective Faile from New York, USA; JR from Paris, France; Nunca and Os Gêmeos, both from São Paulo, Brazil and Sixeart from Barcelona, Spain.

You can also take the Street Art Walking Tour: an urban tour of site-specific art from a group of five Madrid-based street artists: 3TTMan, Spok, Nano 4814, El Tono and Nuria – a map is available online and in the gallery.

Various events will take place during the exhibition, including an interactive evening with experimental New York artists Graffiti Research Lab, refacing Tate Modern with graffiti light projections.

Street Art at Tate Modern opens at the same time as Tate Modern's four day festival of art and performance, UBS Openings: The Long Weekend on 23 May 2008.

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