Vhils: sold-out 2026 objects, Petra prints and proof treatments

Vhils’s recent editions at Underdogs include Lexicon, a 2026 papier-mâché and spray-paint work, and Home, a signed album object made with Hugo Oliveira. Both regular editions were marked sold out when checked on 6 October 2026. The Jaunt’s Destination still offered an add-to-cart option at €650. The studio archive and each publisher’s product page distinguish new announcements from older editions still offered.

Follow editions and gallery works separately

Underdogs provides an extensive edition catalogue alongside separate gallery and publisher routes. The Jaunt has two works from Vhils’s Petra journey: the Destination silkscreen and Purpose risograph. His studio lists Galeria Vera Cortês, Danysz and Baró alongside Underdogs. Baró’s Latent exhibition, dated 19 September 2026 to 15 March 2027, adds current original-work context across poster, tile and architectural-fragment series. Those gallery works need their own material descriptions rather than borrowing specifications from a similarly named edition.

What hand-finishing changes

Many Vhils print records combine a repeatable printing process with bleach, acid, Quink ink or another intervention. Destination, for example, is a hand-finished silkscreen, while Substrata, the FAILE collaboration, is specified as a giclée on cotton rag paper. The shared presence of a portrait does not make their production equivalent. A collector comparing examples should ask which process and support the publisher actually lists, and whether variation is described for that edition.

The proof labels also carry information beyond a smaller number. In Les Enfants d’Ouranos, Leap’s regular edition is described as a giclée, while AP and Roman-numeral versions add paste-up and hand-finishing. Herança’s AP listing warns that further embroidery and interventions are still being developed and may not be fully shown. In both cases, a regular-edition photograph cannot document every announced proof treatment. Leap AP; Herança AP.

Navigate by material and collaborator

Paper editions, embossed ceramics, carved advertising posters, concrete reliefs, metal assemblies and album objects all appear in the catalogue. Lexicon shares its 100 × 70 cm format with the earlier papier-mâché Decal, whereas Ferroscope is a 26-kilogram cement-cast relief with acid-rusted iron filings. Matching face dimensions would not establish equivalent weight or support requirements. Material is a useful first filter; title, year, dimensions, signature and numbered category refine the match.

Alexandre Farto was born in Lisbon in 1987 and works as Vhils. His studio describes a practice of removing material through carving, cutting, etching and related processes, emerging from graffiti and developing through Scratching the Surface. He trained at Byam Shaw and Central Saint Martins. That background helps connect the editions to the wider practice, but each collectible still needs its own facts. The 2008–2024 editions catalogue and the studio’s medium-based archive provide deeper reference without claiming that every historical work is currently available.

Profile photograph: Vhils in Beja, Portugal, 17 May 2017, by Nicola Di Nunzio, via Wikimedia Commons, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. The Commons version has a watermark removed by FMSky in 2023; Release Radar made no further changes. Wall relief: Vhils.