The Vision on Largo Ascianghi: an Inquiry

We happened upon this large and intriguing paste-up one evening while walking in Largo Ascianghi, opposite Nanni Moretti's cinema, near Porta Portese.  The building in the background of the paste-up, well known to followers of Rome's modern architecture, closely resembles one of four modernist post offices built by Mussolini's regime in the 1930s.  This one is located on via Marmorata, not far from the Pyramid, and it's still used, as are the others, as a post office.  The building haunts the scene in a way reminiscent of Giorgio de Chirico's urban 'scapes.  The mural is by RomaBolognaCooperazione, or RoBoCoop.   

The via Marmorata Post Office, Life Magazine, 1940

Curiously, though, the figures in the foreground ride horses rather than drive cars, and they're engaged in tasks that could be described as pre-industrial, including sawing logs with a 2-man hand saw.  At center, four people carry what might be a coffin.  At left, goods are moved by a primitive cart, with thick and possibly wooden wheels, drawn by an ox.  In front/center, the capital from an ancient column suggests that the glories of that period--and, indeed, any interest in it--are in the past.  In the right foreground, a woman rides behind a man on horseback, one dressed in an animal skin tunic of the sort normally identified with cave men.  The number of people in the scene suggest a community, engaged in construction, or reconstruction.

As it turns out, the Ascianghi mural is a redoing of a late-15th-century work (picture below) by Piero di Cosimo, known as an "eccentric" artist.  The workers in the foreground--the same in both works--are engaged in constructing the building in the background. 

What might RoBoCoop have had in mind?  On the one hand, the artist(s) could be suggesting that as much as everything changes, everything stays the same.  Yes, the nature of work changes, but construction goes on, and with some resemblance in the buildings, even though they are some 450 years apart.  Or the RoBoCoop piece could be a comment on the apocalypse, on a post-nuclear world in which humanity has lost all but its most basic skills, a world marked in time by the survival of at least one 20th-century building, a remnant of a pre-nuclear world.

We welcome members' thoughts and ideas.

Bill
PS - We realized only later that we met a couple of the RoBoCoop artists during the Open House Roma weekend - another plus for that spectacular event.
And thanks to Jess Stewart for helping us figure out the artists here.

Rome artist Hitnes follows Audobon

Brown Pelican, August, Miami, FL

Hitnes, a Rome painter and public muralist, is reaching the end of an epic voyage - replicating John James Audobon's (1785-1851) travels along the U.S.'s East Coast, and painting his way on that voyage.  His trip ends in a few days (October 24).  I've always been entranced with Hitnes's gorgeous depictions of animals--real, imagined, and some of both.  We've even bought a small "acquaforte" (a type of etching) of our own to treasure.  Some of these small pieces, along with larger ones, are on his Web site.

One of the small etchings.

Working on the Brown Pelican.

Hitnes's current project is nothing short of astounding. He's been on a 20-city, self-financed, 3-month road trip, with a videographer, and sometimes also Jessica Stewart, the authority on all Roman street art. Hitnes is traveling along Audubon's exploratory voyages from the 1830s, as he describes it, "delving into the current state of the birds he [Audobon] documented."

A painting featuring the "Roseate Spoonbill,"
painted in September in St Petersburg, FL,
(I like the UHaul effect)

You can follow Hitnes on both "The Image Hunter" Web site--where there are many photographs and videos of the live birds, and his own site.

Hitnes describes himself as a painter, muralist, adventurer and fisherman.  He's a 33 year-old Roman whose work we've admired under one of the Ostiense bridges, and in the housing projects in Rome's suburban San Basilio, among many other places.

Hitnes's bloody-mouthed cat--who clearly got her mouse--
at one of the via Ostiense underpasses in Rome.

Don't miss the work of this impressive artist.

One of SIX building walls Hitnes painted in San Basilio, a Rome far-flung neighborhood that needed some decoration.  No, he doesn't always do cats.  I'm a bit cat-focused since our beloved Zelda, our 16 year-old "tortie" died recently.

Dianne

Murales Italian Style: Rome's Street Art Brought to You by Wunderkammern

Russian artist Alexey Luka painting his  multi-story work in Torpignattara, thanks to Wunderkammern and the Russian Embassy. See the finished work, below.

By Spanish artist Escif, "The Right Ear."
Just a great painting, building-high, on the proper
side of the building too.

Wandering the streets of the near-in 'suburb' of Torpignattara, as we have many times, we are constantly delighted by the street art that seems to mysteriously appear where one least expects it.  Most of this street art consists of large works sponsored by the trendy, yet earnest Wunderkammern Gallery, located in the heart of Torpignattara.

The professionally executed 'murales', as the Italians call large wall paintings, stand in contrast to the neighborhood's historical reputation as an impoverished hotbed of crime and, now, the media claims, degraded by an influx of immigrants, Bangladeshi in particular.  

At opening for 2501 (aka Jacopo Ceccarelli) in Wunderkammern's
Torpignattara gallery.

Torpignattara indeed is changing, and rapidly.  An industrial and working-class neighborhood once filled with immigrants from Italy's Southern and Central areas, Torpignattara's population started to decline in the 1980s due to poor housing and high crime rates - until the Bangladeshi (now numbering 5,000) and other immigrants moved in. 

The area has the lowest percentage of college graduates of any in Rome, and the exodus of Italians preceded the influx of international immigrants.  But residents remain unrealistically nostalgic about the "old" Torpignattara, before part of it became "Banglatown." Sociologists describe it as a "re-urbanization," rather than a "gentrification."  There is less crime now than before the Bangladeshi moved in. One could even say it is being cleaned up by the immigrants.  It is an area that continues to be separated socially into different districts.  We found the Bangladeshi merchants concentrated in one section. Another section is the rapidly gentrifying - in the true sense of the word:  Pigneto.  

So how to explain these gorgeous paintings?  They are almost all the result of the intervention by Wunderkammern, which 7 years ago located its gallery here, moving from the charming medieval town of Spello, just south of Assisi in Umbria.  

Change seems to go with the territory for Wunderkammern.  The German word refers to the Victorian "cabinet of wonders," and Wunderkammern is such a cabinet, but one going well beyond its "cabinet doors."  It's a first- rate gallery with artists' works that sell into the 6-figures of Euros.  So it could be located in the center, it could ignore the streets outside its doors. In fact, it does the opposite.

Jef Aerosol's "Tom," near Wunderkammern's gallery space.

As Co-Director Giuseppe Pizzuti told us, "We usually ask artists that we work with and that we invite for a show to Rome to leave a sign of their staying and to realize an outdoor work." Wunderkammern selects the sites.  Pizzuti continues, "Usually we are inspired by outdoor spaces that we see while riding the streets of our neighborhood. Whenever we find a wall that is inspiring for us, we try to obtain an authorization from the people living in that building."  I asked him how receptive the building owners are to the request.  "At the beginning it was not always so easy," Pizzuti said.  "Right now people are calling us to 'offer' their walls to us to have our artists work on them." 

Found this one just walking around Torpignattara,
By Parisian artist Ludo, untitled.  

Of course the 'murales' in Torpignattara can be viewed simply as part of a world-wide trend.  Berlin, London, Los Angeles - all cities famous for their street art.  Torpignattara's 'murales' differ from the concentration of murales in the neighborhoods of San Basilio and Tor Marancia, where large blocks of 8-10 story public housing buildings have created vast 'canvasses' for multiple works close together.  Hitness did 6 of these facades in San Basilio and Tor Marancia's housing project features about a dozen works from international artists, all done in 2015.  By contrast, Torpignattara's walls are varied.  There's no single big block of public housing featuring facades like those in San Basilio and Tor Marancia.  As the neighborhood is described in the book Global Rome, the housing is of varied ages and types, from farmhouses dating from the "agro Romano" to some multi-story block housing.  As a result, the works are more surprising and mysterious to the walker.  And they come in all different sizes.

A C215  (French) work next to the bar across from
Wunderkammern's gallery.

Agostino Iacurci, Clear Sky on the Pink House

One can see Wunderkammern's intervention as changing part of the fabric of this community, most recently under some siege from racists who would limit the percentage of children in the schools whose heritage is non-Italian - even if those children were born in Italy and speak only Italian.

Luka's finished work (at dusk; so the colors aren't true in this photo).
When we were here, there were Rom around having collected detritus and
headed back to, we assume, their camps in cars and with their kids' bikes.

Besides a trip to Wunderkammern, which we highly recommend, one can check out the street art with the new app, streetartroma. We don't recommend the city's tourist map, yes, of street art; it's close to unintelligible.

We do recommend Jessica Stewart's book: Street Art Stories ROMA.

Wunderkammern: 124 via Gabrio Serbelloni.  From Termini, the 105 bus or the tram on via G. Giolitti. tel. Tel: +39 - 0645435662
Cell: +39 - 3498112973 

email:  wunderkammern@wunderkammern.net

A stupendous piece by Nicola Verlato, born in Verona, now from Los Angeles.
It portrays Pierpaolo Pasolini's death.  That's Petrarch and Ezra Pound below (we
needed the explanation from the streetartroma app).  This does not appear to have
been sponsored by Wunderkammern, but clearly the location and its existence
owe much to the gallery.

Generally open Wednesdays to Saturdays 5 - 8 p.m., when there is an exhibit, or by appointment. .  Check the Web site.  Current exhibit is on until 25 July, 2015.

An added attraction is the osteria, Betto e Mary, a few blocks
from Wunderkammern.  One of the cheapest, and most authentic, Roman
trattorie - complete with any kind of animal innards cooked any way
you want them.  This is just one of their several large spaces.
via dei Savorgnam, 99. +39 06 6477 1096.

More Street Art and Occupiers: Ostiense Gets Even Hipper

Cat eats bird

[Update - December 4, 2014 - Blu has finished the artwork on the "occupied" building below.  See this link for photos of Blu working on the immense project, and of the finished work.  The title of the lnk is Blu unveils a majestic mural on Via Del Porto Fluviale in Rome, Italy.  As our London son put it, "Blu is considered a big deal."  Glad we were there early!]

For those tired of RST's obsession with Street Art, skip this post.  But you'll be missing something, imho.  As we noted recently by reviewing Jessica Stewart's book on Rome street art, Street Art Stories, this ephemeral form has an exceptionally good life in this, the Eternal City.  And, having just returned from London and a great street art tour there (Street Art London), we're jazzed up about the form.

oops, there goes the cat

And so it was that we finally stopped in the Ostiense neighborhood (a run-down working class area that is being revived by youth and money, and was on its way enough that it made it into the original RST as part of Itinerary 4) to get a close-up look at what we drive by weekly, if not daily.

The train underpasses for via Ostiense and via delle Conce

we like the see-through aspects of the art in the underpasses

are clearly painted artistry, and they survive tagging and painting over.  Some of the themes echo Rome itself, including the nearby Protestant Cemetery, where Keats's memorial has the inscription by Shelley:  "Here lies one whose name was writ in water".  Some are political (anti-war), and some fantastical (a unicorn, a cat eating a bird, eating a cat, etc.)..

Nearby is an "occupied" building.  We've written previously about occupied cultural spaces in Rome, both on the blog and in RST.  This is an occupied living space.  We took some photos before being asked not to; so out of respect for the residents, we have not included any photos of the inside of this - in many ways - charming space.  The occupants here celebrated their 10th anniversary on June 1-2, with some events open to the public.  It's hard to get one's head around all that from a US perspective. 

The residents of this building are painting the exterior, using the windows for eyes, and creatively bringing out faces.  It's not done yet, one can tell.  We like it. 

But we learned a few days after our visit in early June that residents had filed dozens of complaints with the police about the dangers of the painter working high up without any protection.  Add to that, say the residents, the fact that the large cornices are losing chunks of plaster - hence the closer of the sidewalks with the orange fencing you see in the photo above.  The residents and local merchants are clearly frustrated by the police failure to do anything about the building.  The artist, who doesn't live in the building but was asked by residents to do the painting, claims he will carry forth, even though the police have stopped him a couple times. 

Check out the building, which occupies a former military installation; the ex'caserma, we're told, is what it's called (and, the woman we asked, said, "bello, no?"  - "beautiful, isn't it?").  You can start at the corner of via del Porto Fluviale and via delle Conce. 

and the 1950s madonnellas are still around

Dianne

Brazilian artist Herbert Baglione's work from 2011 is still
untouched.

Jessica Stewart: Street Art Stories ROMA

Jessica Stewart, the talented photographer behind www.romephotoblog.com, has just published a remarkable small book, Street Art Stories ROMA,  that she describes as "The first book about the Rome street art scene!"

The "street art scene" is, in essence, graffiti.  RST is a great fan of Rome's graffiti, with more than 30 posts that mention it, and many that feature it (see some links below).  It's difficult in Rome to appreciate the "good" graffiti - that approaching art - given the ubiquitous "tags" that, frankly, dirty up the city.

Sten and Lex, working in Garbatella in 2010

By focusing on 30 street artists, Stewart draws our attention to the artistry of the form, distinguishing the work of the artists, and describing some of the artists' changes over time.
She acknowledges Rome stalwarts, like Sten and Lex, who do commissioned pieces (even at MACRO) and whom we have lauded in our posts, and she introduces us to a few of the artists who are active currently in the Centro, like Hogre (below, left), works of whom we found this week in Monti.

Tags.  Not fine art. 

By allowing us to distinguish and appreciate these artists, Stewart brings shape and a sense of wonder to Rome's street art scene, making it possible to separate the genuinely artistic from the wall "tags" that do little more than mark up the city's buildings.  We should point out that Stewart's book targets stencil and paste-up art almost to the exclusion of spray painting and use of painted letters and text that we consider the more basic graffiti.

The text runs along breathlessly, as Stewart provides the chronology of her involvement in the street art scene. She's more of a chronicler than an analyzer of street art.  But some analysis there is, and she's attentive to the making of the street art and the reactions of some neighbors.

And, Stewart's may be the first book, but Maria Theresa Natale has a long-standing Web site (in Italian - www.lasciailsegno.it) on graffiti internationally.  Natale focuses more on the painted scripts, as one can see from her Rome photos:  http://www.lasciailsegno.it/index.php?it/164/roma.

There are several current exhibitions of street art in and near Rome, obviously acknowledging it has entered the legitimate artworld - perhaps to its detriment.

A portion of Alice Pasquini's "Cave of Tales" at the Casa
dell'Architettura

"Cave of Tales" is a powerful meditation on urban life from one of Stewart's more painterly artists, Alice Pasquini.  The show, through 30 August, is at Casa dell'Architettura in piazza M. Fanti (the ex-aquarium - a great building, btw).  See the bottom of the site's Home page for hours.  The exhibit is in the basement (floor -1) and one accesses it from the elevator inside the portiere's office just on the left as you enter the building.

The town of Gaeta, south of Rome, has its own street art festival:  http://www.memorieurbane.it/. This year's version included a week of just women street artists, among them Pasquini.

"Urban Contest Gallery 2012" has an exhibition open every day (noon - 7 p.m.) at via di Pietralata 159, at the ex-Lanificio complex.  The current exhibit by Biodpi is titled "I am Anna Magnani." It merits a visit if you can get yourself out there. Don't miss Pasquini's artful trailer in the courtyard of this ex-wool manufacturing facility.

ADDED (10 May) - C215 (Christian Guemy) at Wunderkammern Gallery in Portonaccio through 24 May.  Sabina de Gregori’s new book “C215” (Castelvecchi), with the participation of Jef Aerosol, Obey, Logan Hicks, Martha Cooper, Sten & Lex, and Wooster Collective, will be presented for the occasion.
For the opening Guémy painted walls around Rome, some in collaboration with NUfactory.
Address: via Gabrio Serbelloni 124, Roma.
Opening hours: wednesdays to saturdays from 5pm to 8pm.
Or by appointment at +39-3498112973

And then there's Greco's angry nurse (there are two, actually), on the wall of the Fascist-era post office on via Taranto. 

Stewart's 100+ page book has text in both Italian and English and over 100 photos, each identifying the artist (no mean feat itself).  Street Art Stories ROMA is available at the Feltrinelli bookstores (look for a special display), as well as amazon.it.  List price: Euro 14, Mondo Bizzarro Press.

Some prior RST  posts on Rome graffiti:

A primer on Rome graffiti (from 2009): http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.it/2009/10/graffiti-rome-primer.htmlhttp://romethesecondtime.blogspot.it/2009/10/graffiti-rome-primer.html

A post on the 2010 Garbatella street art exhibition, including outdoor installations:

http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.it/2010/05/street-art-at-middle-age.html

Graffiti at the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles, and in Rome:  http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.it/2011/06/graffiti-good-bad-and-ugly-moca-and.html

Deciphering neo-fascist graffiti on Rome's walls:  http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.it/2011/12/deciphering-romes-walls-neo-fascist.html

And a few specific artists, locations, and types:
Howen:  http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.it/2011/08/graffiti-report-howen.html

Refuse trucks:  http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.it/2011/11/refuse-truck-as-art.html

Via Appia Antica:  http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.it/2009/11/rst-top-40-39-graffiti-via-appia-antica.html

For more, search "graffiti" on the blog.

Dianne

Street Art at Middle Age

It seems to us graffiti is now middle-aged. In other words, it’s comfortably in the mainstream of art and has been for some time. Coffee table books have been published about it, some of the artists fetch 6-figure prices for their works, and mainstream museums hold shows. One can question if this, then, is real graffiti (see note below), but in the meantime we’ll just enjoy it.

As we did this past week when the Rome community of Garbatella hosted an opening of the work of several well-known Roman and French graffiti artists, artists that were in essence commissioned to do works several stories high in several cases or several buildings long in another.

The works ranged from Sten & Lex’s stencil art of Rome soccer star Francesco Totti (the “star” deserves a footnote – see below) mixed with the Rome she-wolf symbol, to wallpaper-like (and we don’t mean that derogatorily) Mideastern designs of Fefe. Our friend Jessica Stewart of Rome Photo Blog (http://www.romephotoblog.com/) is as entranced with this work as we, and she’s a wonderfully gifted photographer. So we recommend you click onto her site for a closer look at this exhibit. Jessica, who was around for much of the mounting of these works, explained how some of them were done in a post to me (see second note below) - fascinating!

Garbatella is a perfect place to mount these works, we think, because it is a tight, leftist community that supports anti-authoritarian activities. The works will be up as long as the weather permits. Because of the rain, some of the paper already is peeling; so get there soon. The works are all on the walls of the block enclosed by via Caffaro, via Persico and via Adorno. Your best starting point is where via Caffaro and via Adorno meet. There you can also see JB Rock’s Mamma Roma, a portion of which is visible in the photo above.

And there is an ending party, with more graffiti art, in the Ostiense locale of the now defunct Rome wholesale markets, on June 15 at 6 p.m. (via dei Magazzini Generali). For those who follow the “Let’s ‘Chattare’” blogs here, you’ll appreciate this ending party is billed as a “Finissage” – which is taking the French word, vernissage, used frequently here in Rome to describe opening parties, and, well, bending a bit. I must admit I kind of like the new bastardized word.

Which brings us to our notes. Note #1: Is it graffiti if it’s in an authorized place, sponsored by, among others, the city and province, and kicked off like any other art opening (the opening was in the large restored 1930s Palladium; photo). See our blog that includes our talk with Maria Teresa Natale, Oct. 27, 2009 http://romethesecondtime.blogspot.com/2009/10/graffiti-rome-primer.html.

Note #2: from Jessica Stewart "Sten and Lex handpainted every panel that they put up. They told me that it took them a little over a month to do it all. JB Rock's was printed and then he painted over it once it was stuck on the wall (filling in the hair and shading). C215 and L'Atlas also had theirs printed. I think Sten and Lex are pretty unique in actually having the patience and perseverance to handpaint something so large. The paper they work on is so thin that you couldn't print on it. "

And, finally, we have to note that iconic soccer player Totti –passionate but also known as a good sport - intentionally kicked an Inter player very late in a frustrating– for Totti and Roma fans - Italian cup game last week. His unsportsmanlike act – “the big kick” – caused national hand-wringing, an outpouring of emotions and questioning of national values, hyped as only Italians can do it. So would Sten & Lex have used Totti in their piece if they had known about his unsportsmanlike conduct before they started drawing?

Dianne
You can try the website for this graffiti project - in English, but it didn’t work for me. www.out-door.it/en. And there's a video in Italian and French at http://www.muvideo.biz/play.php?vid=872

Alone (almost) at the Trevi Fountain

We're always stimulated by Jessica Stewart's photos on romephotoblog.com, and recently one of them, of the crush of tourists at the Trevi Fountain (left), caught our attention. So did the caption, in which Jessica announced that the Rome place she hated most (except for the Spanish Steps), was the Trevi.

Crowds can be fun--at soccer games, political rallies, and outdoor concerts. But we agree with Jessica that they can spoil one's experience of the Travi's gaudy baroque splendor and reduce the potential for that special romantic moment.

But there is a way to be alone with Anita Ekberg's famous fountain: go there in the middle of the night, like 4 a.m. You'll find one police car in the piazza, full of cops. But otherwise you'll have the Trevi all to yourself, or selves. The downside is you'll have to take your own picture, as we did on an early morning in April, or knock on the window of the police car (we don't recommend it).

So set your alarm, Jessica!

Bill