Drago – Street art publisher

"City Slang" is a companion book to the exhibition: "City Slang: The Street Comes to the Gallery" which was on view at Rome's leading Urban Art gallery, Dorothy Cirus in January and February of  2008.  The exhibition was a showcase for art which had been launched directly from the heart of the street into the institutional space of the art gallery. Koralie, Supakitch, Sten-Lex-Lucamaleonte, JBRock and Diamond, Mr.. Wany + Ale! TvBoy, and Gar Crew's work flooded the exhibition space with a rainbow of stencils, posters, and graffiti. A perfect rendez-vous, where the marginal meets and conqueres the main stream. This cultural petri dish  gave rise to a new aesthetic and an urban rebirth. The Italian Renaissance starts here: with this exhibition, these artists, and this book. Drago brought the experience full circle by publishing “City Slang.” It was the perfect project for a publishing house that listens to  underground voices and recognizes urban iconography.

The end result is not unlike Aaron Rose’s Young, Sleek and Full of Hell, also published by Drago in 2004.