John CRASH Matos – The Italian Job

When art galleries in New York and Europe started to acknowledge graffiti writing as an art form and started to put up exhibitions in the late 1970s and early 80s only a few artists with a graffiti background made it into the art world. To this day names like CRASH, DAZE, DELTA2, KOOL KOOR, LADY PINK, SONIC, BILL BLAST, QUIK or BLADE are mentioned when it comes to writers who really established themselves as artists over decades. In 2011 Luca Cinquetti found Arena Studio d’Arte – a gallery which in the recent years held exhibitions with these major artists in Verona, Italy.

The Italian Job was the first exhibition by legendary John CRASH Matos at Arena Studio d’Arte which ran from December 2022 till March 2023. The 80-paged hardcover solely focuses his recent works from 2017 and 2022 presenting canvases, paperworks and neon light canvas objects. Besides an introduction by John Leguizamo and an essay by Raffaela A. Caruso you can also find some retrospective spreads with flyers and shots from early New York shows as part of the content. The Italian Job is limited to 200 copies only and was numbered by hand.

Since exhibition catalogues often become pricey and hard to find gems over time we recommend to get them now for the original price before they are sold out and get expensive collectibles.

82 pages, 21,5 x 30,3 cm, edition of 200, numbered, hardcover
Language: English/Italian
Release date: December 2022
Publisher: Arena Studio d’Arte