Berlin's Urban Spree Galerie  invites you to the Opening of "Concrete Reflections", the first Berlin solo show of the Finnish contemporary and graffiti artist EGS. The exhibition opens on Thursday, September 16th, 2021 at 18:00 during the Berlin Art Week.

Born in 1974, EGS belongs to the first European wave of graffiti, having spread his letters throughout the Nordic and ex-USSR territories. A child of the Cold War, EGS is influenced by the power of geography, space and graffiti-induced movement.

EGS’s first exhibition at Urban Spree Galerie allows the artist to revisit a familiar territory — Berlin and its concrete surfaces — decades after the artist’s first visit and in the context of a world that has changed nearly beyond recognition.

A city that once held the promise of reconciliation between divided factions continues to hold a fascination for the Finnish graffiti writer and contemporary artist, who tagged his name and the day’s date on the Berlin Wall one summer morning of 1988. His return follows many visits to central and Eastern Europe as a young graffiti artist seeking out new territories after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Much has changed, the times of rolling into a city like a juvenile delinquent flaneur, looking to get lost and to discover new underworlds, as EGS did, are long gone. The smartphone makes that kind of adventure almost impossible. Yet the role of both street artist and contemporary artist in questioning authority and ownership of urban space remains fundamental.

EGS has developed over the years a very consistent approach in his art, a "procédé" whereby his tag "E.G.S" is the foundation of many of the artworks he produces. Always the same and never the same. Be it hand-blown glass sculptures, world maps, paintings and drawings, the plasticity of his letters creates an ever-changing mental universe, bordering abstraction, and always personal.

Urban Spree
Revaler Straße 99, Berlin, Deutschland
Revaler Str. x Warschauer Str., Berlin, Deutschland
Berlin 10245