Biography - Hogre

Hogre (Rome) is the pseudonym of a street artist known and appreciated by the international public for his unauthorised interventions in public space. Hogre, a self-taught street artist who grew up in Rome, lived in London for a few years and then moved to Berlin, where he currently lives and works anonymously; his real identity is still unknown. Since 2007 he has been signing his works with the moniker Hogre, which is inspired by a humanoid monster from an early 2000s video game, to which he later added a fly, the artist’s unmistakable logo. His career began in 2006 when he covered Berlusconi’s election billboards in the Tufello area with red noses and still today his art bears the hallmarks of provocation, subversion and irony. The street artist’s works are characterised as Subvertising interventions – from the English subvert + advertising – a term used to refer to the artistic-political movement consisting of the creative vandalisation of advertising space. With his works, Hogre wants to create a disturbance, criticise the use of commercial images and open up a debate on the massive use of advertising and the management of public space.

In 2011 Hogre inaugurated his first solo exhibition in Rome and since then he has exhibited in solo and group shows in various Italian and European cities. Relevant is the project Steal This Poster presented at MACRO – Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma in December 2019 together with the English subvertising collective Special Patrol Group, which opens up a reflection on copyright. The project involves a platform that allows the sharing of subversive graphics, free of copyright and as such downloadable for free at stealthisposter.org. With Steal This Poster he has created online campaigns for various collectives including Lucha y Siesta in favour of the women in the Rebibbia prison. Another project for which the street artist is in charge of the art direction is buyanewsoul.com, an online shop that presents itself as the reversal of a souvenir and gift shop with the aim of describing the collapse of capitalism.

Biography - Rocco and his Brothers

The crew Rocco and his Brothers, which consists of four people, has been an integral part of the Berlin graffiti scene since 2000. The identities of the members are not known. The group was founded in 2016 to work together on autonomous art creations and to annex public spaces. This joint work now manifests itself in socio-political art actions and satirical works. Rocco and his brothers collaborated with URBAN NATION for Project M/10 in 2016.

In 2016, Rocco and his brothers caused an international sensation when they installed a fully furnished living room in a disused underground railway tunnel. A year later, they placed a "Walk of Shame" in front of Axel Springer Haus, criticising the company’s writing style and its abuse of journalistic power. With its art and installations, the left-wing collective aims to expose capitalist mechanisms and inhumane living conditions – be it rising rents in city centres, poor working conditions or child labour in Southeast Asia. Their artwork PALANKA could be seen in the exhibition “Talking…& Other Banana Skins“, 2022-2024.