Valencia celebrates 30 years of the best urban art in the city with a free exhibition at the Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània (CCCC). Principios is an exhibition that not only brings together 10 fundamental names of Valencian urban art, but also proposes a choral journey through three decades of insurgent creativity, color and message.
Specifically, the exhibition shows the work of Barbiturikills, Cachetejack, David de Limón, Deih, Dulk, Hyuro, Julieta xlf, Pichiavo, Vinz Feel Free and Xelon. 10 artists. 10 trajectories. 10 ways of looking, of painting, of being on the street.
How is “Principles”, the exhibition
In the Carlos Perez Hall of the CCCC, each of them raises a wall -literal and symbolic- in which their beginnings, their aesthetic impulses, their thematic obsessions and, above all, their evolution are summarized.
Because Principios, despite what the title suggests, is not just about nostalgia: it is also a vindication of the present and a positioning towards the future of urban art as a discipline, a language and a cultural tool.
The story is built wall by wall. With an unpublished piece painted ex profeso by each artist (except in the case of Hyuro, who died in 2020, whose wall becomes an emotional tribute), with publications, personal objects and a timeline that contextualizes their trajectories.
The exhibition also traces the international impact of this generation of artists: from Pichiavo’s presence at the mythical Houston-Bowery Wall in New York to Cachetejack‘s Golden Lion at Cannes, and Dulk’ s appointment as a National Geographic ambassador.
But beyond individual achievements, Principios is above all an X-ray of a movement that was born without permission, under the moon and with spray paint in hand. “We all started at night,” recalls Vinz Feel Free, curator of the exhibition and one of the protagonists.
Each mural, a manifesto. From the introspective journey of Barbiturikills to the defense of sexual diversity in Vinz, through the pacifism of Julieta xlf, the social criticism of Hyuro or the ecological drive of Dulk and Xelon. There is even room for a symbolic return, like that of Pichiavo, who recovers the language of his beginnings to reinterpret it from his artistic present.
All in all, Principios is not just an exhibition: it is a vindication. A gesture of institutional respect for those who broke the mold without expecting anything in return. A way of saying, with all the letters, that urban art is not an accident of urban furniture, but a legitimate form of cultural expression.
The exhibition can be visited until October 26th at the Centre del Carme Cultura Contemporània.