{"title":"Vhils","description":null,"products":[{"product_id":"entropy-book-vhils-9782072570193","title":"Entropy","description":"Entropy, from the Greek 'entrope', the action of transforming itself at random... For the first monograph in English of the Portuguese artist, Alexander Farto - aka Vhils - it is an emblematic title indeed. The artist's aim, in carving portraits of anonymous persons on the degraded walls of our modern cities, is not only to give a second life to these abandoned mural supports but also to bring to light ordinary citizens roughly treated by a society progressing at a fast speed and leaving them out. Hence, in giving visibility to things and beings whose elimination is programmed, Vhils explored a new creative path.    Giving up the graffiti, he doesn't use the wall as the simple support of his art expression anymore but reaches for the very essence of it. His tools are now the chisel, the jackhammer, even some explosive devices, but no longer the aerosol, to successively reveal the various strata hidden under the surface of the wall and generating human figures hollowed or in relief. But Vhils also works indoors using metal, wood, polystyrene or cork, testing out a new technique each time, like laser scraping the 'crust' of layered advertising posters for the purpose of creating strange palimpsests from which urban shapes and human faces appear here again. All in all, Vhils's work is here to make visible the obvious and less obvious links existing between a city and its inhabitants, and to express the need of preserving, in 'the sound and fury', what makes us human beings.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49563003978001,"sku":"CIN2072570190G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50402809118993,"sku":"CIN2072570190VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/2072570190.jpg?v=1750998665"},{"product_id":"vhils-book-vhils-9783899553826","title":"Vhils","description":"Vhils is undoubtedly one of the most skilled and talented young artists on the urban art scene today. The young, internationally acclaimed artist Vhils creates technically skilled, contemporary portraits. Instead of only adding paint or other materials onto surfaces, he also carves, drills, scratches, rips, or blasts his images out of walls. With nothing less than archeological meticulousness, he penetrates through countless layers of posters, dirt, and plaster to set free the portraits hidden in urban spaces. Alexandre Farto, alias Vhils, started developing his unusual style, which would be impossible without his outstanding handicraft and manual skill, as a graffiti artist on the streets of his Portuguese homeland at the tender age of 13. The end of a fascist dictatorship there in the 1970s led to a chaotic visual layering of socialist propaganda posters with new western European and American advertising that became fertile ground for his emerging style. Vhils's almost sculptural art can be seen as a productive form of destruction-- figures are blasted from the plaster of walls, silhouettes carved from metal, or unsettlingly poetic portraits created using a chisel and a hammer. Vhils depicts the multiple facets of humans as social beings by using their surroundings, which can then further evolve by being blurred and painted over and maybe eventually forgotten. Alexandre Farto studied at Central Saint Martins in London. His acclaimed work has been exhibited internationally and has appeared in a variety of publications, including on the cover of the venerable Times. This book is his first monograph.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":50094965129489,"sku":"CIN3899553829VG","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"GB \/ VERY_GOOD \/ INTERNAL","offer_id":51259015987473,"sku":"GOR014210651","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ NEW \/ INGRAM","offer_id":51387901575441,"sku":"NIN9783899553826","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51837301063953,"sku":"CIN3899553829G","price":0.0,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/3899553829.jpg?v=1751383850"}],"url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/collections\/author-books-by-vhils.oembed","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}