A few days before Labor Day, Futura 2000 was making his mark on the Bronx Museum of the Arts. The scent of spray paint permeated the museum lobby as the artist worked floor to ceiling to transform the white wall into his latest colorful abstract mural. Finished over the course of two days, “Aerosol Aesthetic” will welcome visitors into the space over the next few months and serve as a quick introduction for “Futura 2000: Breaking Out,” his retrospective exhibition now open to the public.
“Futura 2000: Breaking Out” lands at the Bronx Museum after debuting at the University of Buffalo last year. The latest version of the exhibition is a more condensed version of the original show, exploring the artist’s five-decade career, which spans painting, sculpture, drawing and collaborations. The museum show marks a homecoming for the artist, who grew up in New York and got his start in the graffiti scene of the 1970s.
“Everything we did here in New York City was a bunch of kids just being expressive and creative,” he says. “We were all expressing ourselves in our own ways, whether it’s dance, rap, film, photography. People were being creative. Fashion, how they dress, how they looked, style — all those things were really important.”
The exhibition title is a nod to “Break,” Futura’s abstract subway car painting from the ’80s, which marked a departure from the graffiti writer era defined by stylized lettering.
“It’s my opus. I’ve always said that was my grand opening — grand closing in a sense that this is my love letter to graffiti and this whole story of painting on trains,” Futura says of the pivotal freestyle piece, painted over several hours in a subway train yard and documented in service by photographer Martha Cooper. “‘Break’ was the title because I was consciously breaking tradition, because I didn’t want to do what everyone else was doing,” adds Futura, whose career evolved beyond graffiti into fine art and design.
He recently designed Olympic breaking uniforms in collaboration with Nike, and a few days before the Bronx Museum opening Futura announced a capsule collection with Marc Jacobs for the brand’s 40th anniversary. The collaboration includes an assortment of accessories and clothing, such as “The Tote Bag” with the lettering rendered in the artist’s script, his Pointman figure rendered as a leather backpack and jewelry, and atom iconography printed on denim jeans, jackets and other clothing.
“We came together and we chatted about the history of New York,” Futura says. “I’m a few years older than Marc, so I remember him arriving and being this new, hot, young guy that was working in the industry.”
Many of the works on view at the Bronx Museum are on loan from private collectors, including artist Kaws and Agnès B. “It feels good to see the old work that I’ve honestly been separated from for so many years,” he says. “The one behind me, ‘Slammin,’ was a moment when I was coming back into the art world after the 80s kind of — eh, they didn’t really do me wrong, but it wasn’t my moment. And I accept that. And so I just kept working, and coming up with different things.”
“Futura 2000: Breaking Out” will be on view at the Bronx Museum through March 30.
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