Iabo, twenty years of graffiti: the city as a pop canvas

«An exhibition dedicated to young people», Iabo is keen to clarify, aware of how «it is difficult to be an artist from Rome from below». For someone who, starting from scratch, has exhibited all over the world, who in 2016 was in the spaces of the prestigious Saatchi Gallery in London, and who participated, in Amsterdam, in one of the important group exhibitions dedicated to international urban art, together with most famous Street Artists of recent times, such as Banksy, Keith Haring and Obey, a lesson and an encouragement. On the second floor of Palazzo Roccella, the best of his production. From «S/orridi» to «Siamo tutti supereoi», from «I want to be an artist» to «Cartoni animali» to «RiMorsi», the refined and biting trait of Iabo (the name recalls the protagonist of «California skate» , cult film for skateboard enthusiasts) reworks anthropomorphic profiles, redefines contemporary totems, prestigious brands and popular icons. He does so by winking at the Pop-art of the 1980s and bringing to the canvas all the experience of Street art, merged into his past as a writer and enriched by a precision of the line, almost an obsession for the line which is always clear, precise, elegant. The color saturates and dominates images that Iabo draws from current events. He observes, explores and then contaminates reality with subtle cynicism until he desecrates it. Powerful messages declined in a Pop key. Master of the road, Iabo conquers the walls of the Pan, he makes room in space to commemorate twenty years of life in art and for art.

Not just show. Until 9 March, with free admission, workshops, training sessions dedicated to students, meetings and presentations will also be organised. A calendar designed to promote broad participation. Above all through the collaboration with the Silvia Ruotolo onlus Foundation, which together with Dadart promotes the exhibition, curated by Annalisa Ferraro, in collaboration with Inward and with the sponsorship of the Municipality of Naples. The Ruotolo Foundation will involve young people from the juvenile penal area, coming from all districts of Naples, who live in disadvantaged and marginalized conditions.