FOCUS Art Fair London 2023

Underdogs is a cultural platform based in Lisbon, Portugal that encompasses a gallery, a public art program, the production of artist editions, and the development of commissioned art projects.Underdogs works with a diversified roster of Portuguese and international artists connected with the urban-inspired contemporary art universe, fostering the development of close relationships between creators, the public, and the city.

“City Interactions”, the project conceived especially to Focus Air Fair 2023, is inspired by a powerful sentence that represents Underdogs and its work: “in the city, with the city and for the city”. The display presents the dynamic between the city, the artists drawing inspiration from it, and the reaction of people who inhabit it.

The first group of artists represents an overflowing and playful composition of works that are inspired by the urban landscape. They are shaped by colors, lights, and buildings. From Wasted Rita and her humorous approach to difficult subjects such as the housing crisis and gentrification in large cities; PichiAvo and André Saraiva, who represent the urban-inspired art, whose works not only grace the city’s walls but also their canvases; to Kampus who literally brings the urban infrastructure into his compositions. ±MaisMenos± installation appears as a critical pause in this landscape: the artist is always questioning the paradoxes of contemporary capitalist societies.

In the second moment of this project, we can find a group of artists who portray the inhabitants of these cities. Using less color, they focus on individuals, anonymity, faces, and stories. Vhils portraits are a series of works that emphasize the relevance of the preservation of memory and perpetuation of the history of regular people. Nuno Viegas and JonOne create marks for those who are perhaps hidden. Raquel Belli intertwines, both figuratively and literally, the city with the portraits of the common people. All resulting in a collective of individuals, who daily help to shape the city, but while doing so, are also being shaped.