"Graffiti Ruined My Life"
In “Graffiti Ruined My Life” , the artist plays with the bold juxtaposition of classical art and elements of contemporary urban culture to create a work that is both provocative and reflective. The installation features a reproduction of the famous ancient sculpture of Laocoön and his sons, painted on a curtain made of PVC strips, reminiscent of warehouse or garage door slats. This artistic reinterpretation combines both the nobility of sculpted marble and the raw aesthetic of street art.
The choice of Laocoön, an emblematic sculpture of Antiquity that represents man's desperate struggle against an inescapable destiny, is significant. Here, Laocoön seems caught not only in the tangles of the serpents that overwhelm him, but also in the very bands of the curtain that fragment his image, suggesting a double prison—that of myth and that of modernity. By painting this classical figure on an industrial support, the artist erases the boundary between the museum and the street, the sacred and the profane.
The title “Graffiti Ruined My Life” adds a layer of irony and dark humor to the work. This phrase, often used in urban culture to express the conflict between the desire to express oneself freely and the social and personal consequences of this expression, resonates here in a more universal way. It becomes a metaphor for the tensions between the aspiration for artistic immortality and the ephemeral realities of modern life.
The work challenges the viewer to reflect on destruction and preservation, the classical and the contemporary, while posing a provocative question about what it truly means to be “ruined” by art. Is it a loss or a transformation? An end or a new beginning? Using a PVC curtain—an industrial and mundane material—as a canvas for a masterpiece of ancient sculpture, the artist confounds expectations and invites us to reconsider the value and power of art in a context where everything seems both vulnerable and indestructible.
