DIEGO
SPACE PAPER POP UP STORE IN ATAMI
SPACE PAPER, an independent publishing label operated by artist DIEGO, will host a pop-up store. The label publishes artist zines grounded in DIEGO’s personal connections and unique perspective, spanning themes from street culture to contemporary art. The store will exhibit an archive of zines and books amassed by SPACE PAPER, alongside zines and artworks by artists with whom the label has collaborated. These items will be available for purchase.
DIEGO, who started making street art when he was a teenager is not “the artist who represents Tokyo`s street culture , ” but “the most peculiar artist in Japan`s street art scenes. »He has no formal education of any kind – he never went to university of vocational college or as you may have guessed, an art school.He is not the one who grew up amid Tokyo`s wild street culture, either .Instead DIEGO has developed deep insights into graffiti and street art through the lens of otaku, and interprets those insights into his unique forms of expression he keeps installing on the streets slowly garnering popularity for them.DIEGO`s deformed but cute characters are inspires by a nostalgic signboard he found while running around the town on a bike, or the “anonymous characters” from old publications he discovered after frequently visiting his favorite used bookstore.The strange letterings are his unique interpretation of the “ TOY ” graffiti, a form which is becoming popular predominantly in Europe among the younger generation.DIEGO`s “dislocated” expression on the streets slowly keeps pushing its boundaries beyond the realm of visual art consisting of painting, murals and graffiti to include a new territory of conceptual art. In recent years, in addition to the curatorial projects and production as a member of SIDE CORE, the artist has been engaged in a mural project as the organizer, where he directs artists artists coming from all over the world to create murals.
