"IN MY APARTMENT" BY MAXIM IMA

Modern graffiti has its origins in Philadelphia and New York. In the 1960s local young people began to use spray paint to tag their names on buildings and sides of subway trains. In the early XXI century graffiti culture is already validated by the high-brow art community, but most of the people still consider graffiti writers as vandals. Some graffiti is accepted by the general public, especially when artists deal with the unattractiveness of the city's outskirt properties. But the attitude changes drastically when writers decide to use ruined historical buildings as a target for bombing.

Street artist Maxim Ima entered an abandoned mansion in the downtown of Saint Petersburg and discovered crumbling stucco, broken piano and blue walls similar to those in his apartment. He tagged the walls with an ironic reference to the common remark from passersby to graffiti writers: "go home and draw your scrawls there". But who is the vandal? Indifferent city authorities or the artist, who highlighted a deserted concert hall for the public? Ima is permanently in search of godforsaken locations for bombing and street art exhibitions. He collaborates with established art institutions and museums as a curator and stands as one of the key representatives of the Russian urban contemporary art scene.