el celso _________________________________________________________________________________ art news about contact This series was inspired by a trip to Peru in 2010, where I became obsessed with posters made in the “chicha” style. These hand-made posters line city streets all over Peru and feature an eye-popping neon color palette and commercial graphics-inspired lettering. They are generally used to advertise working class concerts and other events. I began collecting discarded and out-of-date fragments of these posters – known as afiches chicha in Spanish – from the streets of towns such as Chachapoyas, Chiclayo, Cajamarca and Lima (to name a few). Later, I contacted the esteemed Fortunato Urcuhuaranga at Publicidad Viusa, the print workshop that originated this iconic DayGlo look back in the 1980s. In collaboration with the Urcuhuarangas, I created this series of posters inspired by the Peruvian chicha style. See them installed on the streets of Peru, New York or Miami here. - celso |