Rammellzee Exhibit Set to Launch in New York City

A new Rammellzee Exhibition is set to be staged by Red Bull Arts New York on May 4 to August 26. The exhibition titled “RAMMΣLLZΣΣ: Racing for Thunder,” will showcase the late artist’s expansive collection of artwork.

Red Bull’s entire Chelsea space will give visitors a peek into his creative output, as the showcase will include almost a complete archive of his various sculptures, traditional paintings, elaborate costumes and graffiti.

The multi-talented artist based a lot of his work on his well-known theory of Gothic Futurism, which he described as “the battle between letters and their symbolic warfare against any standardisations enforced by the rules of alphabet.” The Rammellzee moniker is an extension of this theory and doubles as a mathematical equation.

Rammellzee, who passed away in 2010, never had much of his art exhibited in galleries, because it was stored in his famous TriBeCa loft, nicknamed the Battle Station.

Unfortunately, the building which housed the Battle Station fell victim to gentrification, and Rammellzee and his wife were forced to relocate to a smaller space. Due to the space constraint, they had to pack and store almost 20 years of his trippy artwork, where it remained unseen for years, in danger of being forgotten forever.

The icon was heavily involved in the hip-hop cultural movement in New York in the 1970s and 80s, even collaborating with K-Rob and Jean-Michel Basquiat on a single named “Beat Bop”, from the film “Wild Style”.

Visitors will also be treated to oral histories about the artist, recorded by his friends and collaborators. The exhibition will coincide with the Red Bull Music Festival in New York.