The Bronx Museum 2025 Gala Honoree:

FUTURA 2000: BREAKING OUT, a career retrospective of artist FUTURA 2000 (b. Leonard Hilton McGurr, 1955, New York, NY)  is on view at The Bronx Museum through March 30, 2025!

BREAKING OUT charts the singular artist’s evolution from graffiti art to contemporary abstraction through his sculptures, drawings, prints, studies, collaborations, and archival paraphernalia—as well as new site-specific temporary installations.

The title of the exhibition refers to FUTURA 2000’s boundary-breaking creative practice and his famous 1980 piece, Break, where the artist painted the full exterior of an NYC subway car with vibrant color and no lettering—a first for the graffiti art movement. At the time, FUTURA 2000 would “bench” in the South Bronx to watch his Break train pass by on elevated tracks—a short distance from The Bronx Museum.

FUTURA 2000’s creative practice continues to be informed by his lifelong fascination with the aesthetics of science fiction. Forms appear to float freely across the surface of his abstract compositions, suggesting the expansiveness of outer space. He utilizes spray paint with virtuosic precision, accented by gestural brush marks. Recurring motifs include the atom shape, symbolizing perpetual motion; a crane or linear mark, indicating a moment of rupture; and the enigmatic Pointman, reminiscent of an alien presence.

FUTURA 2000’s work is included in collections such as The New Museum, New York; MOCA, Los Angeles; Groninger Museum, the Netherlands; Yvon Lambert, Galerie De Noirmont; Fondation Louis Vuitton, Paris, and Takashi Murakami’s Kaikai Kiki Gallery, Tokyo, Japan. His collaborations include Virgil Abloh and Rei Kawakubo of Comme des Garçons.  In 2020, the Isamu Noguchi Museum presented FUTURA Akari, an installation of Akari light sculptures customized by FUTURA 2000. In the same year, the artist created a large site-specific installation at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris and was included in the exhibition Writing the Future: Basquiat and the Hip Hop Generation at the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. The artist lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.  Eric Firestone Gallery is the artist’s U.S. fine art representative. The creative and artist management agency ICNCLST represents the artist’s fine art and commercial projects globally.