The Hallelujah World Tour

Marquis Lewis, also known as RETNA, is a street artist. In previous decades, we might have said “graffiti,” but that was then and this is now. Those guys and gals early to the scene — Banksy, Geoff McFetridge, Barry McGee and Margaret Kilgallen — have worked for years to make room in the famously tight quarters of the “fine” art world for their street artist peers. The steep trajectory of RETNA’s career is evidence of the payoff. The 31-year-old artist’s first solo exhibition in the UK, his second stop in “The Hallelujah World Tour,” opened this week in London.

What makes RETNA’s work so arresting is that it is simultaneously familiar and exotic. He draws on a number of influences, sweeping across centuries — from hieroglyphics to Asian calligraphy and Arabic script to the traditional Los Angeles gang graffiti styles from the ’70s. Still, the visual language he has created is like nothing you’ve ever seen before. It was bold enough to catch the eye of Jeffrey Deitch, who included RETNA in the major retrospective “Art in the Streets” at the Museum of Contemporary Art in LA earlier this year.

RETNA’s “World Tour” (on view in three cities, to be exact) consists of 30 new mostly large-scale pieces, and is presented by another, albeit younger, art world heavyweight, Vladimir Restoin Roitfeld (yes, the son of former French Vogue editor Carine Roitfeld) along with his partner, Andy Valmorbida. As part of the project, RETNA has hand-painted an original design for VistaJet, a show sponsor, snazzing up the tail of one of their planes. We’ll let you be the judge of whether trading alleys and billboards for a corporate jet as a canvas is a threat to a street artist’s street credibility.

The “Hallelujah World Tour” began in New York in February and is currently on view at The Old Dairy (7 Wakefield Street, London, WC1N 1PB) until June 27th. There is no admission fee. The tour will wrap up in Hong Kong later this year.

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