Vhils: Exploring the Master of Urban Art

Explore our archive dedicated to the groundbreaking work of Vhils, the Portuguese artist renowned for his unique approach to urban art. His signature technique, using subtractive methods to reveal hidden layers within walls, creates breathtaking and thought-provoking pieces. Delve into his powerful portraits, often depicting marginalized communities, and discover how he uses the urban landscape as his canvas. We cover his major works, creative processes, and the impact he’s had on the street art world. Whether you’re a seasoned art enthusiast or new to Vhils’ work, this archive provides a comprehensive look at his artistic journey and enduring legacy.

Decayed Church Mural by Vhils

After hitting California, China and Lisbon, destruction muralist Alexandre Farto aka Vhils (here our interview with him), just popped up on the Archipelago of the Azores for the currently running Walk & Talk festival… Recently, he and his team finished up a pretty impressing decayed church mural! This new piece entitled Abraço to ruin (Embrace the ruin) depicts a women retaining the ruin’s walls as if protecting a child. Looks just amazing to me - especially the view over the trees (see above) is killing it. Here are some more impressions, via Vhils’ Facebook: ...

Concrete Art: Vhils in Lisbon

Wow, I’m totally flashed - Portuguese hero and artist of destruction Alexandre Farto aka Vhils just redesigned one of the oldest concrete blocks in Lisbon! In Eixo Norte-Sul, a district in Portugal’s capital, Vhils added parts of a face onto the facade of an abandoned concrete tower. Right next to the motorway, it’s now attracting people’s attention… For Vhils, who visited California and Shanghai before, it’s one of the first stops at home for a while. Hope to see some more new works of him in Europe in near future! ...

New Vhils Murals in Shanghai

Alexandre Farto aka Vhils is probably one of the most influencing urban artists for the last two or three years. With his unique explosion wall art technique (I would call it 3D stenciling) he is travelling the world… The Vhils Interview: Impressed after looking at this amazing artworks? If you wanna know some more details about Vhils and his story, read the interview we did with him before he became that famous! And now watch this amazing exhibition trailer… ...

Top 10 Urban Artists 2011

After presenting the five most popular Urbanartcore posts in 2011, I will now honor this year’s top ten urban artists! Of course it’s difficult to do that. There’s a massive count of highly talented urban artists out there around the globe and I’m pretty sure either that there are also some great street or graffiti artists I haven’t heard about yet. Nevertheless I gave my best and wrote together some of the most influential and popular names from both, the street art and graffiti scene. Here we go: ...

Vhils - Destruction Art Book

With his technically masterful, contemporary portraits and his sensational art of destruction, including exploding walls, Alexandre Farto aka Vhils soon became one of the most skilled and talented young artists in today’s urban art scene, for what reason I’m really happy that I did this nice interview with him in 2010! Earlier this year, Gestalten published a fist book about the art of Vhils. Including a preface by Marc and Sara Schiller (who you probably better know as Wooster Collective), the book presents not just Vhils’ popular wall stencils, but also other projects he worked on between 2007 and 2011, like the Nothing lasts Forever and To Have or to Be series, or Scratching the Surface and the Disintegration series. It also includes his major exhibitions at Lazarides Gallery in London and Los Angeles… ...

Vhils Documentary

When well-known Portuguese-born deconstruction artist Alexandre Farto aka Vhils visited Venice in California a short while ago, he was followed by filmmaker Carlos Gonzalez who documented his latest work… This particular piece was done in conjunction with the European Bailout Show at the Post No Bills showspace and located just on the side of the gallery. I like the footage and especially the reverse playing and the wired atmosphere. Additionally it’s always nice to see heavy machines in action to create street artworks… ...

Explosion Wall Art by Vhils

Urban Destruction Art | Almost a year ago I showed you my love for this kind of rough and energetic urban art by publishing a big fat interview with Portuguese artist Alexandre Farto aka Vhils! Now he’s back with a big bang-boom-bang and jumped in from zero to hero with these awesome exploding wall… I try focusing on the act of destruction to create; this is a notion I first came across in Graffiti, and it has been very influential in my work. I believe we are all formed of different sets of layers: personal, social, cultural, historical and so on. (Vhils) ...

Princess Hijab, Urban Bowling & Subway Exhibition

Before you end your day today, enjoying the bright summer weather, I give you interesting lecture tips for the weekend and some nice inspiring urban art impressions. This week was characterized by some really amazing solo-artworks, new announcements of attractive street art exhibitions and of course a lot of new mural artworks… This is this week’s urban art eye candy: Vhils & JR big in Los Angeles - The both urban artists Vhils and JR did a great new mural artwork in the city of Los Angeles! ...

Art of Destruction: Interview with Vhils

Although I did not write about him so far, Alexandre Farto aka Vhils is recently one of my favorite urban artists. With his amazing and very popular Scratching The Surface artworks, he tries “focusing on the act of destruction to create” as he told me in the interview he gave me some days ago… uac: In the last months and years, you and especially your artworks became very popular around the world. A lot of people wrote articles about you, published photos and videos about your artworks and were - like me - fascinated about the way you create your works. Although, nobody really knows something about you. Could you explain who you are, where you´re from and how you got in contact with the so-called urban art? ...