NOTRE COLLECTION COUP DE COEUR

Description of the artwork:

Paper mounted on foam board in a frame under glass.

aerosol and ink


exceptional work exhibited in a MUSEUM

Exhibition from June 24 to September 3, 2023
For the 2023 edition of the Roubais URBX festival, the American street artist JonOne, who has set up his French workshop a few steps from La Piscine, is in the spotlight in the museum spaces with an exhibition highlighting a unique and assertive style, which has now become a world reference.

Born in 1963 in New York, of Dominican origin, JonOne was attracted very early by the freedom of the street he traveled to write his name there. He founded the group 156 All Starz in 1984, rubbed shoulders with A-One and Jean-Michel Basquiat, before settling permanently in Paris in 1987 where he found an audience and a dynamic source of inspiration. A pioneer of graffiti, he developed his colorful and joyful style, not only in the street but also on canvases, and reinvented the codes of this artistic practice which is now exhibited in galleries and museums. From meetings to visits, JonOne falls in love with Roubaix, its inhabitants, its energy, which had already seduced Mahjoub Ben Bella, a significant figure in the construction of his universe. In 2018 he visited a workshop near the station, an empty shell bathed in light which reminded him of the atmosphere of Harlem, which had become his sanctuary.

JonOne's investment in Roubaix was particularly highlighted in the summer of 2022 by the installation of a large painted metal shutter on one of the exterior walls of the museum, in the perspective of rue des Champs and the facade former of La Piscine. This spectacular and meaningful work – its support is the former carriage gate of the Jouret factory, now an artist incubator in Roubaix – is a sign of the institution's opening to a wider audience and to renewing artists. the practice of painting.

To confirm this shared path, La Piscine invites JonOne to present his forays into the world of applied arts, in the wake of his recent and very notable collaboration with Gien earthenware, or even with the Daum crystal factory. A series of drawings and paintings, as well as his collaboration with agnès b. will also be exhibited, revealing a bold and flamboyant work, which gives movement and color its place.