MARCO ''PHO'' GRASSI

Marco “Pho“ Grassi (1976 Milan) translates his background as a bomber to his vast abstract paintings by referring to graffiti writing’s traditional elements: the word, the rhythm of the line and a performing dynamism. By recovering elements from the daily life like torn manifestos and wooden pallets he postulates an hommage to the street.
He approached Street Art for the first time in Paris trains and walls, influenced by NY and Paris Graffiti Art, he set himself on the Italian street art scene during the early nineties, becoming one of the major protagonists. In 1995 he attended the painting class of Luciano Fabro at the Brera‘s Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. He extended his research in materials that the city can offer, recovering elements from the daily life like torn manifestos and wooded pallets, used as support for the pictorial intervention, where the action of the time destroys and transforms the artwork, posing its roots in a urban context. Moreover (infl uenced by the oriental painting and the abstract expressionists like Emilio Vedova, Georges Mathieu, Sam Francis) he works using the spray paint alongside the use of brushes, tar and sponges, characterizing his style with a strong and powerful gesture sign.


SELECTED EXHIBITIONS

»Paper Works« (group show)
Curated by Johann Haehling von Lanzenauer, Berlin, 2011

»Banca Generali Private Collection«
Milan, Italy, 2011

»The Urban Artist – Hamburg« (group show)
Curated by Johann Haehling von Lanzenauer, Hamburg, 2011

»Moniker« International Art Fair
London, 2010

»Escape 2010« (international exhibition of urban art)
Vienna, 01.10 - 24.10.2010


»Volta6 Art Fair Basel«
Circleculture Gallery, Basel, 2010

»Decadentisme« Marco Grassi aka Pho & Jaybo aka Monk
Avant Garden Gallery, Milano, 2010

»As a good painting about nothing« (group show)
Circleculture Gallery, Berlin, 2010

»Art for Haiti«
Leonard Street Gallery, London, 2010

»Marco Grassi aka Pho« Live performance 
Project Room, Berlin, 2009