CONTACT:
info[at]thetvboy.com
(+34) 615719545 - (+39) 3282916738
HEADQUARTERS:
c/ Pasaje del Marques de Santa Isabel 40
08018 Barcelona - Spain
ARTIST BIO:
Born in Palermo (Italy), “Tvboy” is the pseudonym of the young artist
Salvatore Benintende.
He grew up in Milan, where he broke into the art world via graffiti since
1996. After studing painting and illustration at the University of Bilbao
(Spain), he returned to Milan and graduated in Industrial design, specializing
in graphic art. He began collaborating with various European studios and
brands as freelancer; has put together shows in several galleries and
been involved in street events in Italy and Spain. He currently lives
in Barcelona where he runs his own studio. His visual style is inherit
from Pop art and comic strips, with breezily expressive graphics and his
own imaginative reworking of past icons. The baby with the face inside
the Tv set, his alter-ego and hallmark, carries the message: “Switch it
off,you’re the one on stage!”
MASH-UP BOY.
by Jacopo Perfetti
TvBoy is the son of post-modernism and of the cross-media mash-up. His
works are a Bakhtinian carnivalization of the contemporary world, where
styles, citations and influences pour onto his canvases like fragments
of street pop with a neo-punk aftertaste. Starting with the streets as
his own channel of expression, Salvatore Benintende, alias TvBoy, has
made his art an ongoing experimentation with the idioms of communication,
with mass media serving at the same time as the inspiration and the negation
of his research. “Switch off the tv, you’re the one on stage”. With this
message, simple and universally understandable, the artist has given life
to his creative alter ego, a child observing with genuine sensitivity
a present broken into an impure flux of mixed-up styles. All of these
elements can be found in the works of Salvatore, whether they are on the
street or in the studio. Looking at his canvases is like looking at Peter
Greenaway’s “A Zed and Two Noughts” or Quentin Tarantino’s “Pulp Fiction”
through the fragmented filter of cyber-navigation. His art is a meta-narration
of the contemporary, composed of reminders from a past revived in a game
for two, where the spectator is invited to take part in the dialogue of
Art. TvBoy has reinterpreted all his heroes, from Roy Lichtenstein to
Milton Glaser, from Salvador Dalì to Andy Warhol, in a constant customization
of his own history. In his canvases, the spirit of rock – the grunge of
Guns and Roses and Nirvana – moves through the fetishes of pop iconography
in an ironical assemblage in the style of Adrian Tranquilli. As the postmodern
artist mixes anthropological symbols and religious archetypes into comic
book superheroes and iconography, TvBoy uses the same irony in reflecting
on figures characterizing his era, alluding to an uncertainty typical
of this century, where “everything is possible and nothing is true”. The
essence of his art lies precisely in the sensibility with which he observes
the reality surrounding him. This genuine and almost adolescent sensibility,
leads him to be astonished by the Other who becomes, in his canvases,
the dialectical instrument of his art. To the irony of postmodernism and
to the capacity of mixing styles and instruments typical of the media
mash up, the artist adds all the expressive energy of street art, a movement
he adopted at the very beginning. On the street, Salvatore wears the clothes
of TvBoy, a personality lost midway between the tenderness of the child
and the explosiveness of the illustrarocker, who leaves his mark traveling
from the streets of Milan, where it is easy to see his works, often flanked
by those of other street artists, to the periphery of Barcelona, which
the artist has chosen as his creative atelier. Thus his art becomes public
art, which everyone can enjoy, and it surprises and provokes, narrates
and astonishes. Thanks to his uniqueness, he manages to stand up against
the anti-graffito terrorism dominating Milan in this period, when, without
making any distinctions, the wall surfaces of the city were being restored
to the same colour gray as the city atmosphere. The best way to get acquainted
with the art of TvBoy is to walk through the streets of the cities which
have welcomed him, cities to which the artist has donated corners of color,
from the graffito made with the street poet Ivan in Via Cassala, in Milan,
to the landslide of stickers TvBoy has used to customize cities all over
Europe. Salvatore generates his art both in galleries and on the street,
imagining dream worlds and engendering visions as he slides, with exquisite
balance, between art and design, illustration and communication, inviting
all to take part in his revolution without weapons. Come out and play!
SELECTED JOB EXPERIENCES
2007-2008 Teacher of the Course “Dirección de Arte y Ilustración” at Idep
- Barcelona - www.idep.es
2007- Freelance Collaboration with Inoxcrom - Street Art school line
2007- Freelance Collaboration with Nescafé - Charity Mug
2007- Teacher of the Workshop “Snowboard Design” - I.E.D Istituto Europeo
di Design - Barcelona
2006- Freelance Illustrator for Studenti Media Group S.P.A.
2006- Freelance Collaboration with Rojo for Rojo Smart Open your Mind
Campaign
2006- Art Direction of the magazine Whipbike - Planetbase S.L. editorial
- www.whipbikemag.com
2005-2007 Art Direction of the Magazine Unopop - issues 26to34 - Planetbase
S.L. editorial - www.unopopmag.com
2005- Aided teacher of the Magazine Design Course - Politecnico di Milano
- Facoltà del Design - Milano
2005- Freelance Collaboration with Publicis Italy for the Hp’s Hypegallery
Campaign
2004- Degree in Industrial Design with Communication address at Politecnico
di Milano
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