Taking street art inside

The artist behind upcoming show Around the Walls tells ELENI PHILIPPOU how his work represents the changes time sees on a community

Does street art belong in exhibition spaces and how do you present a large mural within an indoor art space? These questions come to mind with the opening of an exhibition in Nicosia just a few days before 2022 ends, putting street art in the spotlight.

Around the Walls: Between Tradition and Globalization is the first solo showcase of artist Twenty Three. After 10 years on the street art scene, in Mexico, Spain and the UK, the museums of Italy and the 2014 Venice Architecture Biennale, he is hosting his first solo show in his home country.

Nicosia, Lofou and Katydata are home to some of Twenty Three’s most popular work and though his street art has circulated, it has never been presented in an organised show before. He is now gearing up to present old and new pieces at The Common Room, a brand-new event space by Prozak Kafeneio.

From Wednesday to December 30, the two floors of Common Room will take visitors on a journey through Twenty Three’s artistic exploration. Stencils on wood, cyanotype printed images, the Fragmented Reality interactive installation and his street art pieces will all be in the exhibition. But how do you present art that for so long has lived on a city’s walls?

In Twenty Three’s case, some will be featured via framed photos but he is also placing part of a wall in the exhibition space. For the artist himself, bringing street art into an exhibition space has been a fascinating journey.

“It’s really interesting to explore what is graffiti,” he said, “what is street art and if it is part of contemporary art, and can be placed indoors. I started understanding street art as part of what we could call post-graffiti. In the 90s, there was some sort of explosion of street art when we started seeing images rather than text or tags. And I think it was the moment when more people got attracted to these visual representations that they could see in the streets.”

By studying graphic design, Twenty Three said he understood public space and how it can be used to start a conversation or share thoughts. It was also during this time that hanging a work of art in a gallery does not make you less of a street artist.

Twenty Three is, of course, his artistic name and he has managed to keep a low profile all these years. In his early career he was more serious about remaining incognito, not sharing anything other than his creative signature. Over the years, he has become more flexible yet still prefers his artwork to take the spotlight rather than the face behind the work.

“In the beginning,” he explained, “I was stricter about that and it is common for street artists to hide their identity. By the time I decided that this is the way that I would like to keep on with my artistic practice and my life, it was not really easy to stay hidden all the time. I know that I’m not going to avoid it completely, I mean, I’m going to be at the exhibition”. He can also often be found at festivals, where he participates in workshops, and teaches part-time at an elementary school.

Around the Walls will include a variety of materials and colour palettes, some highlighting Cypriot issues and others expressing elements from other cultures from projects developed abroad. Both, however, come back to the topic of identities and the change local communities face as they get caught between tradition and modernity.

“When I started making portraits of Cypriots around the villages,” the artist said, “it was a way to kind of bridge the generational gap between those generations and my generation and how art is changing.” This interest has taken him around the world, to Calabria to study the Griko people and to Mexico to look at the identities found in indigenous communities. Evolving identities is a recurring theme in Cypriot communities as well.

“I’m trying to open up the discussion about identities in Cyprus a lot. It’s something that I’m really interested to discover. What the identities here are, what’s the construction of identities and how we proceed with them. If we question them and the master narratives that they’ve been created around,” he said.

Twenty Three’s work tries not to push any one narrative but to pose questions and offer the chance for people to reflect and discuss, whether they like his art or not. Because that is street art – accessible to and made for all.

“Street art doesn’t require higher art knowledge,” he said. “You don’t need to study art to understand it. We’ve seen this with contemporary art when you realise that you need a lot of education to feel familiar with, and understand what it means. Street art is straightforward, immediate.”

Around the Walls: Between Tradition and Globalization

First solo exhibition of street artist Twenty Three. December 21-30. Common Room, Prozak, Nicosia. Opening night: 6pm. 6pm-10pm. Tel: 22-104244