URVANITY MAHOU TALKS

Mahou

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  ALBERTO GONZÁLEZ PULIDO

  Law degree from the ULPGC, master's degree in intellectual and industrial property and new technologies. Head of the Department of Commercial Law at UNED Las Palmas 2014/2015, he works as a consultant and cultural manager in different institutions. Since 2016 he has been a director of AICAV (Asociación Islas Canarias Artistas Visuales), which in turn holds the vice-presidency of the Unión de Artistas Contemporáneos de España. His work has been linked to the drafting of the recent "Statute of the artist" and to the reform of the REF of the Canary Islands included in the recent reform of the Autonomous Statute of the Canary Islands.

  As a cultural manager he collaborates regularly with the Manuel Ojeda Gallery, where he carries out management, administration and curatorial work, and with which he has participated in national and international contemporary art fairs. He collaborates with KREAE, organiser of the PROYECTOR video art festival. She is currently developing her research work on intellectual property and censorship with an informative and participative project called "LÍMITES IMPUESTOS A LA CREACIÓN" which has been developed in centres of the City Council and the Community of Madrid, and which is now in its fifth edition.

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  BILL POSTERS

  Bill Posters is a public art critic. His interventions often interrogate the various facets of propaganda and its structure and impact on notions of justice, democracy, privacy and environment. Since 2011, Bill has initiated pioneering derivative practices, known today in the field of street art as "subversives", short for "subversive advertising". Applying deviance theory, and augmenting digital contexts, his practice "hacks space and place" to reveal the power relations that exist between corporate and state levels and their subjects, the citizens.

  Bill is co-founder of Brandalism (www.brandalism.ch) and Subvertisers International (SI). Bransalism is made up of renowned artists, designers and activists from 22 countries. In 2016, Communications Without Borders awarded Bill the "Activist of the Year" award for his Brandalism project at the "COP21 Climate Change Talks in Paris" (http://brandalism.ch/projects/cop21-climate-talks/). For the project, 600 advertisements were replaced with public art related to climate change, consumerism and corporate lobbying.

  Bill is an honorary seeker from the University of Manchester, Great Britain, and a published author in the field of subversion, protest art and propaganda. His latest book, "Street Art - A Handbook" will be published by Laurence King in 2019. His work is featured in Creative Review, Adweek, Washington Post, Forbes, CNN, Al Jazeera, Reuters and the BBC.

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  DAN WITZ

  Dan Witz (Chicago, 1957) lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. The artist has an extensive academic background that includes studies in fine art and design. Influenced by punk culture, he began his career in 1979 and quickly became one of the leading pioneers of street art. Challenging the more traditional canons of the art world, Witz chose to focus on street art, creating installations in the streets of numerous international cities and expressing his ideas freely and directly.

  At the beginning of his career, Dan Witz concentrated on hyperrealism, which he explored through painting. His method later evolved into public installations, which had to be realised in a very short time. The artist is inspired by the social changes of his time, which he reflects in his artistic production. His street interventions are related to political and economic issues.

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  DENIS LEO HEGIC

  Curator of the urban-contemporary art biennial Monumenta in Leipzig, creative director of the Berlin-based production company YAP and an X: ex-Yugoslavian, ex-boyfriend, ex-chauffeur and x-man defying the limitations of time and geography. He can be seen working on the streets of Taipei one day or giving a lesson in a museum in Germany the next.

  "When we talk about curatorial work today, whether in an urban environment or in indoor exhibitions, we are in the midst of a process of transformation, challenging established curatorial principles. Curating, connecting to art and history, presenting new talent, and presenting the works, requires: 1. Engagement, 2.

  Over the course of the last few years we have been able to develop significant urban projects thanks to the interconnection of different media, skills and professionals. It is the collaborative effort that has been decisive in setting standards in the responsible management of the urban environment. By co-curated Monumenta together with Jan Fiedler and Michelle Houston at the Berlin Art Society, across genres and generations with Sasha Krolikova, Isabel Bernheimer, Marc Omar and Genefer Baxter, we have been able to deliver viable public art solutions to the complexity of the urban fabric in which we live.

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  FERNANDO FIGUEROA SAAVEDRA

  PhD in Art History from the UCM (1999) and vice-president of the Spanish Association of Researchers and Disseminators of Graffiti and Urban Art INDAGUE. He has focused his research on graphic-plastic expressions in public, popular and subcultural spaces. Her multifaceted training (historian-archaeologist, graphic-plastic, actor-scenic, literary and teacher) allows her to interrelate different aspects of culture, advocating an integral knowledge of the cultural complex. Currently, she develops an independent activity, focused on the study of the roots of Graffiti and Urban Art and the diversity of the graffiti phenomenon.

  His most notable publications are Graffiti y civilización, vol. I (2017), Firmas, muros y botes (2014), El grafiti de firma (2014),Graphitfragen (2006), El graffiti universitario (2004) or Madrid Graffiti (2002).AAF, London (2011) and Stroke, Munich (2009).

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  JAIME ROJO Y STEVEN P. HARRINGTON

  Steven P. Harrington and Jaime Rojo are the founders of the influential art blog BrooklynStreetArt.com which has been garnering praise from institutions and the streets for over a decade, with Steve as Editor-in-Chief and Jaime as Photo Editor. Proud New Yorkers, artists, patrons and cultural managers for over 25 years, both are experts on the evolution of the Street Art scene in New York, as well as worldwide. With daily posts on Brooklyn Street Art (BSA), over 300 articles published in The Huffington Post and nearly a million followers on social media, their writings have been published in Spanish, Italian, French, Norwegian, Portuguese and Korean, and they have taught and discussed street art, graffiti, murals, public art and contemporary art in over 100 cities over the years.

  Working with influencers, artists, fans, galleries, collectors, curators, neighbours and major cultural institutions, the two continue to foster the growing dialogue about the importance of street art and its many colourful followers. Harrington and Rojo continue their world tour that has taken them in the last 3 years to Norway, Germany, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, Denmark, Portugal, Spain, French Polynesia, Finland, Colombia and Mexico, and will take them to Madrid, Sydney and Brazil in 2019.

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  JAN KALÁB

  Jan Kaláb (Prague, 1978) is one of the most important artists of international urban and geometric abstraction. Born in Prague in 1978, he soon became one of the most important local writers, and also founded a famous crew, DSK. Signed as Cakes he travelled around Europe and America, developing his style towards 3D Graffiti. Under the name Point he made installations with abstract letterforms, placed in the streets or hung on walls, seeking ever larger dimensions. These works, although technically far from graffiti, take him to a higher level of abstraction.

  Since 2007 he explores abstract painting with a variety of infinite tones, expressing his own language through a perfect balance between forms and minimalism, capable of generating surprising effects of depth and dynamism.

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  JUAN BAUTISTA PEIRÓ

  PhD in Fine Arts and University Professor at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Universitat Politècnica de València. Vice-rector of Culture from 2005 to 2011. Since 1996 he has directed various projects related to public art, including the curatorship of the urban art meeting Poliniza Dos, which has reached its thirteenth edition.

  Member of the Valencian, Spanish and International Associations of Art Critics. His work in management, research and teaching has been complemented by his work as an advisor to contemporary art collections in public and private institutions, such as the Caja de Ahorros del Mediterráneo (CAM) and DKV.

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  OKUDA SAN MIGUEL

  Born in Santander in 1980. He lives in Madrid, where he also has his studio. His unique iconographic language and multicoloured patterns that can be found in the streets of much of the world have made him one of today's most recognised artists. His works often raise questions about the contradictions of false freedom and the conflict between modernity and our roots.

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  OSCAR SANZ

  Óscar Sanz, together with a group of friends including the artist Okuda San Miguel, whom he has represented since 2004, created Ink and Movement (IAM) in 2007, a project he developed within Plural Form, an agency he founded in 2001, in response to the need to legitimise, give visibility and offer business coverage to public art, taking it from the street to the galleries to claim its place in the contemporary art circuit. With Ink and Movement it has developed a professional and artistic structure where artists feel supported, while their works are managed in the most effective and rigorous way. This unique business structure has ensured that Ink and Movement's mission of placing art horizontally and at the same time opening it up to a public that normally ignores it has become a fact.

  Óscar Sanz, with more than 15 years of experience in the world of what is today defined as urban culture, has in recent years become, together with his company, a reference in urban culture and a prominent opinion leader. He has given talks and conferences, developed projects and opened new lines of business in different cities and countries, such as the Urban Art festival (2004/05), the first gallery specialising in urban art in the capital, Iam Gallery (2012), the Truck Art Project and Kaos Temple (2015)... Finally, it is worth mentioning his role in the world of teaching, with different Master Classes given for prestigious institutions such as SAE Institute, the Camilo José Cela University...

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  PASCAL FEUCHER

  Pascal Feucher (born in Paris in 1970) is the founder and manager of Urban Spree, a multicultural space created in 2012 in the heart of Berlin. Urban Spree spreads over 1700 m2 of terraces, concert halls, artists' studios, murals, tattoo studios and of course a gallery, a bookshop and a print shop. Within the team, he is especially involved in Urban Spree Galerie, a 400 m2 gallery specialising in "post-graffiti".

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  SABINA CHAGINA

  Sabina Chagina is a leading expert and curator of projects in the field of urban art. Together with her partner Yulia Vasilenko, she is co-founder and organiser of the ARTMOSSPHERE Contemporary Urban Art Biennial in Moscow. Founded in 2014 and having presented in 2018 its third edition, it is the only Biennale representing leading exponents of urban art from around the world.

  It is the director of the creative union of the same name, ARTMOSSPHERE, which acts as an agent of support and development of urban art and culture in Russia and around the world.

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  SERGIO PARDO

  A graduate architect from the ETSAM in Madrid, MBA Cultural from New York University (Fulbright scholarship holder), he has developed a career linked to the art world from a multidisciplinary perspective. He has managed and curated projects in prestigious institutions such as the Spanish Pavilion at the 10th Venice Architecture Biennale, the Peggy Guggenheim Collection in Venice, the Canal de Isabel II Foundation, the Casa Encendida in Madrid and the Lola Garrido Collection.

  Sergio Pardo is currently Associate Director of the Percent for Art Program, a permanent public art programme of the New York City Council's Department of Culture.

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  SUSAN HANSEN

  Susan Hansen is one of the most cited (and third most cited in the world) transdisciplinary street art scholars, with backgrounds in forensic psychology, visual sociology and art history. Her unique vision of street art, graffiti and contemporary urban art is based on her transdisciplinary experience.

  Susan is Head of the Department of Visual and Creative Methodology at Middlesex University, London. She is also Director of Art in the Streets, which organises urban talks and events, including the Art in the Streets symposium series at the Institute of Contemporary Arts, London.

  Susan is committed to establishing and connecting external audiences with contemporary urban art and her studio by offering unrestricted access to publications, lectures and uncurated public art. To date, she has worked with the Institute of Contemporary Arts in London, the British Museum, the Royal Court Theatre, the Moniker International Art Fair, the Museo d'Arte di Bologna, The Museum of Modern Art in New York and other renowned cultural institutions.