Artist · Painter · Style Writer (Smash137)
Adrian
Falkner
About
Adrian Falkner, whose writing style as Smash137 is regarded as pioneering and iconic in the graffiti world, continually explores the interplay of symbols, forms, materials and techniques across his various bodies of work. His extensive experience in outdoor spaces has greatly informed this exploration.
Beginning in 2005, he started transferring his writings and wall pieces — originally created for outdoor sites — onto the canvas, adapting them for indoor venues. In 2013/2014 he definitively stepped out of the shadow of his graffiti persona; the catalogs Public Enemy and Graffiti Painter mark that turn.
His exhibition Hands (2019, lotsremark Projekte, Basel) was a turning point. Since then, the sewing machine has replaced the airbrush, and deceleration has replaced speed as the defining characteristic — most visible in the ongoing Boulder series, where earlier paintings are cut apart, reworked and sewn back together into self-referential, object-like canvases.
Education
- 2015–2017
MA Fine Arts, Department of Fine Arts, Academy of Art and Design, Basel
- 2000–2004
Visual Communication, Adcomm, Basel, Switzerland
- 1996–1998
FSG Academy of Art and Design, Olten, Switzerland
Exhibitions
Selected solo and group exhibitions.
Solo
- 2024
Smash137 — BC Gallery, Basel (CH)
CAZIMI — Zonecontemporaine, Bern (CH)
Demontagen — Gallery SOON, Zürich (CH)
- 2022
Spolia — Pop;68, Cologne (DE)
- 2021
X — Lotsremark Projekte, Basel (CH)
- 2019
Hands — Lotsremark Projekte, Basel (CH)
Liquid Planet — Kunsthaus Baselland (CH)
- 2014
Graffiti Painter — Galerie Le Feuvre, Paris (FR)
- 2013
Public Enemy — Gallery ABTART, Stuttgart (DE)
Group
- 2025
8 Times 8. Stories Series Systems in Mythology & Art — University Museum and Art Gallery, The University of Hong Kong (HK)
- 2024
Unified / Contrasts — Colab Gallery, Weil am Rhein (DE)
- 2020
PAMX — Le Commun, Geneva (CH)
- 2018
Spirit of Exploration — Ad Hoc Kunstraum, Olten (CH)
Don’t sit on the furniture — Le Feuvre & Roze, Paris (FR)
- 2016
Big Wave Line — Sulmertor, Heilbronn (DE)
- 2015
Disclosure — Library Street Collective, Detroit (US)
- 2009
Tomorrow Ain’t Promised — Heidelberger Kunstverein (DE) — with Ruediger Glatz
Publications
Selected exhibition catalogues and books.
- 2022
Don’t Sit On The Furniture — Exhibition catalogue, Galerie Le Feuvre & Roze, Paris (FR)
- 2018
Cold Fever — Exhibition catalogue, Galerie Le Feuvre & Roze, Paris (FR)
- 2014
Graffiti Painter — Exhibition catalogue, Galerie Le Feuvre, Paris (FR). ISBN 978-2-918330-21-9
- 2013
Public Enemy — Exhibition catalogue, Gallery ABTART, Stuttgart (DE)