City, 2015

Nadib Bandi  

Intention note — City
« City » is a major canvas by NADIB BANDI through its dimensions — 331 × 141 cm — as much as by the density of its subject matter. His post-abstract Graffiti style expresses itself in its entirety in it: the bright colors, the multidirectionality of the lines, the plays of speed and depth create a composition that is both pure abstraction and an urban memory deeply inscribed in the artist's body.
The title — « City » — reveals the substrate of the work: the city as a space of formation, playground, and permanent subject. BANDI has never mentally left the railway tracks and urban surfaces where he developed his practice since the late 1990s. What resembles pure abstraction is in reality a condensation of urban experiences — speeds, angles, layers, palimpsests.
Abstract constructivist graffiti: a singular approach
NADIB BANDI himself qualifies his approach as « constructivist abstract graffiti » or « futuristic post-graffiti ». This self-definition says the essential thing: an origin firmly rooted in the Graffiti culture of the 1990s, and a movement of transformation that borrows from constructivism — its tense lines, its geometric plans, its awareness of structure — as much as from the futuristic aesthetic — speed, the machine, the decomposition of movement.
It was on the railway tracks that BANDI began his practice, like many writers of his generation. This school of repetition, speed, and formal efficiency forged a visual grammar that the following twenty years refined without ever betraying it. His formal research today extends to canvas painting, monumental wall frescoes, and three-dimensional sculptural installations — including anamorphic works that are only revealed from a single viewpoint, inviting the viewer to move.
This large format imposes in the interior space the same presence as a wall fresco. The work is not reduced; it is lived.
International presence and critical recognition
Born in 1980 in France in the Geneva region, NADIB BANDI developed his practice in Paris and Geneva before extending his reach internationally. He participated in major festivals such as the Meeting of Styles (Poland, Italy), Kosmopolite Art Tour (Belgium), Festigraff (Dakar), Regraff (Benin), The Wall (Togo), as well as exhibitions in Dubai, Monaco, Toulouse, Liège, or Zurich.
His work is the subject of reference publications, notably in the collective work « Graffiti, 50 years of urban interactions » (Lokiss, Nicolas Gzeley, Stéphanie Lemoine and Julie Vaslin, Hazan editions, 2018) — one of the most comprehensive syntheses published on the history of Graffiti. In 2019, Stuart Urban Art Magazine dedicated an article to him in its issue 16, analyzing his links with the Bauhaus heritage.
Institutional link
In 2025, NADIB BANDI — presented as BANDI — participates in the exhibition « Graffiti, letters & styles » organized by the Galerie du Boléro in Versoix, in partnership with the gallery OUTSIDE ART (May 8 – July 27, 2025). This exhibition brings together seven international artists — BANDI, KASER, REYONE, SERVAL, SMASH137, WHYRE and ZURIK — around a questioning of what Graffiti can be today, at a time when this movement born in the streets of New York in the 1970s has entered the collections of museums and galleries all over the world.
Formal analysis
The panoramic format of « City » — 331 × 141 cm — imposes in the interior space the physical presence of a wall fresco. The work is not contemplated from afar: it envelops. The bright colors and the multidirectionality of the lines invite the gaze to get lost in the composition, to read speeds, directions, superimposed strata that refer to the artist's formation on the railway tracks.
The aerosol technique is here at the service of an almost total abstraction: no identifiable letter, few recognizable shapes, but a pure energy, a formal dynamic that concentrates all the urban experience of the artist within itself. It is in this sense that « City » is more than a descriptive title: it is a proposition about what the city does to a body, to a gaze, to an artistic practice.
The frame was made in the protected workshops of the Centre Espoir in Geneva.
Certificate of authenticity issued by the artist
City is presented by OUTSIDE ART