art plugged: “futura2000 ‘the pioneer of abstract graffiti'”

Q: In your latest collaboration with Potato Head, your Pointman Character, synonymous with work, takes centre stage as a sculpture to raise awareness about river and ocean pollution. Can you tell me more about this project and the significance of the sculpture?

It’s a long story and process, yet it’s really all about the collaboration with Sungai Watch for the Singapore sculpture and Yayasan Kakikita for the Bali sculpture. Without their efforts and fabrication capabilities, turning waste into the 888KG, 6-meter high polygon puzzle, it wouldn’t be possible. I am truly grateful to Potato Head for hosting the work of the coming future. I hope we will inspire others to follow our lead and think of ways to contribute to the cause.

” I noticed that the absence of those letter structures, beautiful colour fields and abstract realms. Those unknown, unexplored places were something I definitely wanted to investigate. “

#FUTURA2000

FUTURA2000, also known as FUTURA, is a pioneering graffiti artist who rose to prominence in the 1980s New York art scene for his distinctive style, a fusion of Graffiti and Abstract Expressionism; born Leonard Hilton McGurr in New York in 1955.

The native New Yorker’s journey in Graffiti started by painting subway trains and walls throughout the city. In the early 1970s, he co-founded the Soul Artists collective with Marc Edmonds, also known as Ali. McGurr’s enigmatic handle, FUTURA2000, was inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey and futurist Alvin Toffler’s book Future Shock.

In 1980 FUTURA made his mark on the scene by painting an entire subway car titled “Break” without using lettering, a first for a Graffiti artist at the time, and was celebrated for his abstract approach. An aesthetic resulting from FUTURA’s investigation into the unknown and unexplored became one of his work’s defining traits, increasing his notoriety as an artist.