Since the 80's shoes have become a cult in the hip – hop culture, the concrete symbol of its respectability and identity. In this sense, stepping on someone's shoes represents a real offense which, in certain cases, flowed into violence and death.
With no doubts, shoes are the proper instrument to analyse and encode the hip – hop background.
Gabriele De Santis (born in Rome , 1983) lives and works between Rome and London. His work focuses on the idea of identity and is characterized by the reinterpretation of hip - hop language and icons.
Gabriele De Santis investigates the dynamic interactions among rave communities with the aim of finding something mysterious , transgressive and contradictory. What comes out is the need to follow a code of conduct.
Some exhibitions :
White Cube Gallery on Second Life , Onish Gallery – Chelsea, New York, group exhibition organized by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York . Group exhibition “22 of 7”, Gallery Marek Sulek, Warsaw, Poland.G roup exhibition during the Italian Culture week, World Art Museum of Beijing ,China.”Dry Photo”, Prato.“Emotional Community”, Monitor Gallery, Rome .
Gabriele De Santis develops iconic elements deriving from music. Youth, urban tribes, rave parties and hip-hop are elaborated into his projects. Gabriele's installation comes from the analysis of an American East coast hip-hop video made in the 90's.
He uses thin, light and translucent materials. His work is a spatial type of work, representing the attempt and desire to remember and possess the space, and at the same time, to forget and release it. The primary concept is memory. Memories of everyday life. On a basket playground, young men live their daily lives. They seem to strongly relate to a concept whose power consists of perceiving art as Pop Art.
Porto San't Elpidio, Italy • 2009
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