The Best of Times Are Now
to
Graffiti Gallery 109 Higgins Ave, Winnipeg, Manitoba R3B 0B5

“The Best of Times Are Now,” 2024
(courtesy of the Gallery)
Opening Reception: February 2, 7-11pm
Graffiti Gallery is pleased to present The Best of Times Are Now, a selection of photographs from Winnipeg’s most formative years of modern graffiti (1998 and earlier), from a collection archived by an early Winnipeg graffiti pioneer, mentor, and advocate.
Step back in time to pre-1998, to obscure places such as back alleys and beneath bridges. In pre-internet and smartphone eras graffiti was documented only by those who knew where to find it, and the photographs themselves served as artifacts attesting to marks made by graffiti artists, which were often ephemeral in nature.
The Best of Times Are Now refers to one of Winnipeg’s first public aerosol murals, painted in 1994 in Osborne Village on Winnipeg’s first legal wall. This location and the participating artists were at the forefront of Winnipeg’s graffiti movement, a community built through the need to self-source reference materials and inspiration without resources such as the internet, and with limited access to self-published graffiti magazines. Instead, artists relied on their obsession as the driving force to practice their tag, or nom de plume, repeating it thousands of times in sketchbooks, on walls, bus benches, and foggy bathroom mirrors and windows, eventually practicing two-colour outlines and more complicated wild style works.
The Best of Times Are Now, is intended as a historical archive, featuring over 100 enlarged photographs documenting a glimpse of local graffiti history. In addition, the original vintage photo album from Frenzee in 1994 will be on display.
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