At the Groninger Museum, you can explore the boundless creativity of Hip Hop, a cultural movement that spans countless creative fields, from art, fashion, design and language to music, dance and graffiti. Through a selection of artworks by creators from inside and outside the Netherlands, guest curator Rieke Vos, working with Dennis Kok and Sherlock Telgt, demonstrates how Hip Hop culture has influenced the visual arts over the past 40 years. You’ll discover both familiar and new works by Martha Cooper, Arthur Jafa, Iris Kensmil, Mick La Rock, Dana Lixenberg, Rammellzee and many others.
Hip Hop is multifaceted, groundbreaking and constantly evolving. It is undeniably one of the most influential cultural movements of the 20th and 21st centuries. Hip Hop is loud, tough and expressive, and a source of cultural richness and creative resistance, born of a need to demand one's own place, challenge inequality and expose injustice – to speak truth to power.
You may associate Hip Hop mainly with music and fashion, but Hip Hop Is turns its focus to visual art. The artworks in this exhibition, which range from photography, painting and sculpture to graffiti, demonstrate how Hip Hop has influenced and enriched visual art everywhere from the streets to the museums.
Groningen, the Netherlands and the world
Groningen holds a unique position in Dutch Hip Hop history – not least because the Groninger Museum director Frans Haks took an interest in the genre beginning in the early 1980s. The museum staged multiple exhibitions and events devoted to graffiti art, often accompanied by rap and breakdance performances. A lively local graffiti scene sprang up in their wake. From the late 1980s, the city attracted musical attention thanks to the Hip Hop crew Zombi Squad, which toured across Europe from its early years. Exhibition advisors Sherlock Telgt and Dennis Kok take you on a tour of the highlights of Groningen Hip Hop history, relating these to key moments elsewhere in the world – with the help of the Dutch Hip Hop Archive’s one-of-a-kind collection, which contains nearly every Hip Hop album and single ever released in the Netherlands.
Rammellzee
One room in the exhibition will be devoted to the work of Rammellzee, the visual artist who made Hip Hop avant-garde. The internationally esteemed artist was the subject of a retrospective exhibition in Paris earlier this year – and, back in 1987, one at the Groninger Museum. Hip Hop Is brings the artist’s work back into the museum context and showcases unique loans, iconic outfits, and film footage from the 1980s.
New work
Several artists have been commissioned to create new work for Hip Hop Is. Iris Kensmil is building an installation focusing on portraits of female rappers. Boris Tellegen (Delta) is developing a mural based on a 30-year-old wall sculpture. And Niels Meulman (Shoe) will introduce visitors to his inimitable caligraffiti technique with a new wall painting over 13 metres in length.