The last surviving contemporary of a group that included Keith Haring and Jean-Michel Basquiat, Richard Hambleton is returning to the limelight after a 20 year hiatus from the art scene, with a new exhibition at the Diary in London - his first ever show in the UK. Presented by Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld and Andy Valmorbida in collaboration with Giorgio Armani, the show will display 38 works, half of which have never previously been exhibited.
Venerably known as the 'godfather of street art', Hambleton was lining public spaces across America with his works long before the likes of Banksy and Shephard Fairey.
Some of Hambleton's most thought-provoking works include his 'Image Mass Murder' series of the late 1970s. For this 'crime scene' street intervention of sorts, the artist enlisted volunteers to pose as homicide victims in cities across America, outlining their shapes with white chalk, then splashing red paint onto the resulting forms.
Street art aside, Hambleton's talent is in the way he engages with the viewer. Despite the abstract nature of his energetic brush strokes, the forms they create are startlingly life-like and arresting. Pair this together with the chance to see a comprehensive body of both old and new work from the New York art scene luminary, and you have an undoubtedly intriguing show.
'Shadow Man Standing' by Richard Hambleton
'Shadow Man' by Richard Hambleton
'Jumping Shadows in Black & White' by Richard Hambleton, 2009
'Horse and Rider' by Richard Hambleton, 2009
'Kick Box Shadow' by Richard Hambleton, 1999
'6 Shadow Figures' by Richard Hambleton, 1999
'Horse and Rider' by Richard Hambleton, 1984
'Standing Shadow' by Richard Hambleton, 2009
Artist Richard Hambleton standing next to one of his pieces
ADDRESS
The Diary
7 Wakefield Street
London
WC1N 1PG
-
A new Oxford Street pop-up celebrates IKEA's blue bagsIKEA's iconic blue bag gets its own pop-up concept store, the 'Hus of Frakta'.
-
Audemars Piguet and Kaws have created the Royal Oak Concept watch we didn't know we neededThe Audemars Piguet x Kaws Royal Oak Concept Tourbillon 'Companion' is slick wrist-worn art
-
A friendly rivalry coloured by kinship: Wendy Maruyama and Tom Loeser on their two-artist show'I wanted to make furniture, just not traditional furniture, but weird furniture,' says Wendy Maruyama on ‘Colorama’, a two-artist show presented at design gallery Superhouse (until 11 January 2025)
-
The Turner Prize 2024 opens at Tate BritainThe Turner Prize 2024 shortlisted artists are Pio Abad, Claudette Johnson, Jasleen Kaur and Delaine Le Bas
-
Peggy Guggenheim: ‘My motto was “Buy a picture a day” and I lived up to it’Five years spent at her Sussex country retreat inspired Peggy Guggenheim to reframe her future, kickstarting one of the most thrilling modern-art collections in history
-
Please do touch the art: enter R.I.P. Germain’s underground world in LiverpoolR.I.P. Germain’s ‘After GOD, Dudus Comes Next!’ is an immersive installation at FACT Liverpool
-
‘Regeneration and repair is a really important part of how I work’: Bharti Kher at Yorkshire Sculpture ParkBharti Kher unveils the largest UK museum exhibition of her career at Yorkshire Sculpture Park
-
‘Mental health, motherhood and class’: Hannah Perry’s dynamic installation at BalticHannah Perry's exhibition ’Manual Labour’ is on show at Baltic in Gateshead, UK, a five-part installation drawing parallels between motherhood and factory work
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the BarbicanIn Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
-
At Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, activism and innovation meetGlastonbury’s south-east corner is known for its after-dark entertainment but by day, there is a different story to tell
-
Suzannah Pettigrew's 'tender and ghostly' new show at Surrealist photographer Lee Miller's former home in East SussexLondon-based artist Suzannah Pettigrew's photographic stills create a snapshot of her Sussex coast childhood, conjuring up a hallucinatory world of memory
