Luca Maleonte: Rome Street Artist does Francesco Totti

By Alice, on via Casilina Vecchia

RST follows, recognizes, and appreciates the work of a small group of serious street artists, Roman and otherwise, whose work has appeared in the city.  Among them are C215, Hogre, Alice and, most recently--a discovery of only weeks ago--Luca Maleonte.

Maleonte's Vespe, in Quadraro

Maleonte recently made a big splash in Quadraro--a suburb on both sides of via Tuscolana--where he drew a series of wasps/"vespe" to commemorate the efforts of the area's people to harass, irritate, and disrupt the German occupation of the city in 1943/1944. Romans have long memories for that occupation, and many continue to dislike Germany, things German, and Germans for acts committed 70 years ago.


Our favorite Maleonte is just two blocks from our apartment in via Olbia, not far from San Giovanni in Laterano and within a few blocks of where Totti grew up.  It's a 3-story drawing of AS Roma soccer legend Francesco Totti, accomplished on a school building at the corner of via Aquila and via Farsalo.  Totti may have attended school there, or the location may have been chosen because it's across the street from an athletic field where the blossoming star learned his trade.  Despite its simplicity, it's instantly recognizable as Totti. The artist's name is at left, rendered here as Luca/Male/Onte and often written as one word: Lucamaleonte.  He was born in 1983.

Maleonte's "Vecchio a Chi?", in San Giovanni

The Totti is the first part of a Maleonte cycle, "Contemporary Mythology," carried out under the auspices of 999CONTEMPORARY--which provided all the funds--and the local government of the area, Rome's 7th muncipio.  The title of the work--"Vecchio a Chi?"--"Old to Whom?"--was Totti's response when, at age 37, critics called him "old."  Maleonte intends the work to engage the idea of aging in contemporary society.  The artist works in a stencil style that combines contemporary street art with touches of 15th-century medieval.

The Totti work, tagged.  

Unfortunately, the original work has been "tagged"--that is, written over, in this case in a limited way, the tagging occurring only at the bottom of the portrait.  Even so, the original work is a significant one and, from one we have learned of the ethical traditions of street art, should have been left alone.

For photos of Maleonte accomplishing the Totti work, see http://www.999gallery.com/?p=12192

Luca Maleonte's contribution to a Macro Testaccio exhibit on street art.  It has an Adam-and-Eve look,and is
titled "Allegory: The Future Flees the Present and Takes Refuge in the Past".  The
exhibit is in La Pelanda and is free.  

Arts alert: Totti Fresco undergoing Restoration

Elizabeth Minchilli reports on Facebook that a 10-year-old fresco of the Roma soccer star Francesco Totti--off via Madonna dei Monti in the Monti quartiere--had recently been defaced and, we're pleased (and somewhat surprised) to learn, was being restored by the artists who painted the original.  The restoration effort is depicted in Minchilli's photo, above.  RST took the "before" photo, below, in 2010.  Elizabeth Minchilli's website is www.elizabethminchilliinrome.com    Bill

Where Francesco Totti learned his Trade

Legend has it that Francesco Totti, for almost two decades the star of A.S. Roma, one of two premier-level soccer teams in the city (and the one preferred by a more working-class fan base), learned to play on a field in the quartiere of San Giovanni, where he grew up in a large public housing project.  We learned about the field a couple of years ago, when there was concern that the hallowed pitch, sandwiched somewhere between via Sannio and via Amba Aradam, and behind the basilica of San Giovanni in Laterano, would be sacrificed to a new Metro line.  Oh, no!

Market carts, all with the same rubber-trimmed iron
wheels.  Behind, the wall Bill considered scaling.

Our search for the field began just outside the city wall, in the large and active market that runs down via Sannio (and one characterized, we think, by especially aggressive merchants - tho' the prices are right, if you bargain, adds Dianne).

We thought we had found the field around the back of the market, in the alley called via Locri, where the old market carts are stored.  Bill imagined scaling the wall in back for a peak at the historic site, but he would have been not only foolhardy but wrong.  At the next turn in, we asked a gatekeeper for permission to have look at Totti's "stadium," which we assumed was right there, within his purview to show us.  Wrong again, but he sent us on our way with directions, while noting that what we were looking for hardly qualified as a "stadium."  "Campo", or "field," he corrected us.

Clubhouse bar

A few meters further on, as via Sannio became via Farsalo, there it was, and guarded--if, indeed, he was a guard--only by one man reading a book in front of a closed clubhouse bar. 

The field.  In the distance, the statues on the facade
of San Giovanni in Laterano

The playing surface is now artificial turf--not what Totti would have learned on, 25 years ago, but evidence, we think, that the field will be spared, saved from the Metro. 

The "stadium," such as it is.

And from the other side

And yes, there is no "stadium," but the small building that shelters the field and houses seats for spectators is a special one, designed and built in the Fascist era. Signs point to a $500,000 upgrade in process. (The paint squares on the side of the stands apparently are samples from which the final color will be selected.)

Nearby, a sidewalk traffic barrier, painted in Roma's colors, marks Totti's presence in the neighborhood. 

Bill

(For more neighborhood decoration for A.S. Roma and Totti, see this earlier post.)

Advertising: Totti's Cucchiaio

"Clearly," intones the Nobel Prize-winning physicist Michael Beard in Ian McEwan's recent novel, Solar, "advertising was an industry for third-raters."  The remark gave us pause, and cause to reflect on the cast of ad execs that populates one of our favorite TV shows, Mad Men.  Even so, we always enjoy scanning the latest evanescent products of the industry when we land in the Eternal City. 

For the current expedition, the early favorite is a series of advertisements made for Sky, the satellite company owned by Rupert Murdoch, a competitor of Silvio Berlusconi's Mediaset Premium Calcio.   

Many of Italy's most famous soccer players are featured in the series.  We were particularly struck (and mystified) by this illuminated Metro billboard featuring the iconic captain and star of AS Roma: Francesco Totti.  Dressed in Roma colors and surrounded by Roman ruins--one of which appears to be a cross between the Coliseum and a modern soccer stadium--Totti looks gratefully to heaven, the source of the Sky "miracle": calcio (soccer) for only E29 per month.  Our Rome friends (and Roma fans) were aghast at the hypocriscy of suggesting that E29 was inexpensive, and--more important--surprised that Italians would tolerate, much less appreciate, an ad campaign that rather distastefully fused the national sport with religious imagery. 

And the spoon?  What's with the spoon that Totti brandishes?  What's that all about?  In Italian the word is "cucchiaio" and, as our friends--we're at dinner when we're talking about his--immediately made clear, Totti is famous for the "cucchiaio."  That is, he's widely known and admired for the soft, spoon-like shots that he has put into opposing nets over the years, shots that seem especially compelling and endearing coming from a big man with one of the game's hardest shots.  Our Roma tifoso (fan) M. waxed eloquent and fondly over a particularly fine example, a penalty kick on which Totti waited for the keeper (goaltender) to move, then "spooned" to ball gently into the center of the net. 

You'll find all the videos easily enough; just put Totti and "cu" into a search engine.  Or click on this link for 4 minutes of the best of Totti's "cucchiai." 

Bill

A Dog in Rome

We found this guy--in a city of small apartments, atypically large--in a second-floor window in the San Giovanni neighborhood, mourning his exclusion from the city's street life while entertaining passers-by below.  If we remember correctly, the dog resides in a massive housing complex on Largo Pannonia (we hope that's correct) where Roma soccer star Francesco Totti grew up.  On the broad sidewalk in front of the complex, soccer remains a favorite activity.   Bill