La déferlante hip-hop

A proposal and text by Oriane Emery & Jean-Rodolphe Petter

This is the first Swiss exhibition devoted to the emergence of hip-hop culture in French- speaking Switzerland in the early 1980s, represented by local graffiti artists Koze and Sena, born in 1969 and 1968 respectively. At the same time, it presents an archive of exhibitions and visits to Switzerland by New York graffiti artists (A-One, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Crash, Daze, Keith Haring, Phase 2 and Rammellzee) during the same decade. This movement was born between Philadelphia and New York in the late 1960s and early 1970s. The exhibition concludes with the contemporary work of César Bilavie, an artist from Lausanne who deconstructs the codes of classic graffiti using supports and techniques borrowed from contemporary art. The work Les mangroves célestes was created specifically for this occasion and painted on a paraglider canvas from the 1990s.

This project represents the first curatorial stage of a long-term research project. It begins in 2020 with the writing of a study for the Service de la culture de la Ville de Lausanne. The study focused on graffiti conservation methods. A field study carried out jointly with Lausanne graffiti artist Skelt identified historical graffiti dating back to 1986 under a bridge on Chemin du Closel in Renens. The graffiti was created by the “United Artists of Lausanne” crew, including Koze and Sena. Borrowing references from 1980s hip-hop culture and stylistically inspired by the cover of Charlie Ahearn’s film Wild Style (1982), these graffiti (BBOYS and STYLE) planted the seed for a forthcoming exhibition. Another highlight was a visit to the Basquiat x Warhol, à quatre mains exhibition at the Fondation Louis Vuitton (Paris) in 2023. The monumental work by A-One, Crash and Daze belonging to the Speerstra collection (Bursins (CH) - Paris) was presented in a room dedicated to the New York art scene (downtown) of the 1980s. It turns out that this canvas was painted for the opening of the Art Basel art fair in 1984. From then on, the two main axes of the exhibition were defined, the mandate to CALM - Centre d’Art La Meute was obtained, the meeting with César Bilavie took place and the research work to bring the exhibition to fruition began in January 2024. One thing led to another, and we drew up a list of artists and put into perspective the important links that Switzerland had with the arrival of hip- hop culture in Europe.

On show for the first time are works, documents, photographic archives and objects from the private and personal collections of the guest artists, as well as from the Speerstra collection, the Bruno Bischofberger and Ziegler galleries in Zurich and the Gymnase du Bugnon (site de l’Ours). This is also the first exhibition with a historical perspective offered by CALM - Centre d’Art La Meute since its opening in 2022. A total of 104 pieces are on display for the exhibition La déferlante hip-hop, whose title refers to the eponymous article by journalist Pierre-Yves Borgeaud for L’Hebdo in 1990.

The exhibition will be accompanied by several public events, including guided tours and an evening screening at the Cinéma de Bellevaux (June 28). We are also organizing an evening of performance and discussion with American artist Rashayla Marie Brown (Chicago) and Nayansaku Mufwankolo, president of the Afropea Cultural Center (Lausanne), as well as the vernissage of the book Une brève histoire de la trans-misogynie, published by Shed publishing (Paris-Marseille). These two events are part of a reflection on the deconstruction of contemporary clichés in hip-hop culture and, more specifically, in graffiti: machismo, mysoginism, white washing. Queer studies are contemporary with the emergence of the hip-hop movement in the United States, emblematic of the black cultures that have shaped our contemporary thinking and international culture. Taking the example of the exhibition The Times Square Show (New York, 1980), cultures, though different, mixed and were not compartmentalized, the whole was political and militant for the rights of women, racialized and discriminated people. There was violence, of course, but the groups talked to each other. It’s this exchange that we want to re-establish.

The project “La déferlante hip-hop” was made possible thanks to the generous support of Loterie Romande, AVV – Arts Visuels Vaud, the Fondation Casino Barrière Montreux, the City of Lausanne, and the City of Renens.