Today on BSA, we have “A Possible History (of Fishes)”, an unusual and stunning mural by artist HITNES. Adorning the walls of ITC Paolo Toscanelli High School in Ostia, Rome, it is part of the E.C.O. initiative—Ecologia Condivisione Opportunità. Curated by Mirko Pierri and supported by the a.DNA project, the mural invites viewers to explore the intricate connections between nature and humanity through the lens of aquatic life.
A visual narrative spread across two large walls, each scene crafts an interpretive guide for the viewer from top to bottom. HITNES’ distinct style is on full display, characterized by a blend of naturalistic detail and surreal elements. The artist depicts the evolution and history of fish, intertwining real and imagined scenarios that challenge the observer to consider the impact of human activity on the environment. Using a subtle palette and organic forms creates an immersive experience, drawing your attention to the beauty and fragility of marine ecosystems.
Complementing the mural, we have a video by Simone Fedele (below) that captures the essence of the artwork and offers a deeper exploration of its themes. Set to a haunting soundtrack of Eclipta’s “Undersea,” the video brings to life the mural’s narrative, highlighting the interconnectedness of all living things.
Curated by Mirko Pierri of the a.DNA project association
When Evolution Splashes onto School Walls: The E.C.O. Mural Unfolds
Let’s dive into a story where fish climb out of the sea and onto the school walls. Picture this: The Toscanelli Institute in Ostia, Italy, is no longer just a backdrop for mundane school routines. Thanks to the visionary Mirko Pierri of the a.DNA project, this school has turned into an extraordinary canvas that narrates the fascinating tale of evolution, courtesy of the street artist known as Hitnes. This isn’t your everyday science class; this is art making school cool again.
“The Poetry of the Fishes’ Evolution” is a journey from the ocean’s abyss to the land’s expanse, with Hitnes as our guide. His artwork wraps around the school’s walls like storybook pages, where fish transform into mammals right before our eyes. But there’s a twist – this story is a nudge towards thinking about our environmental impact.
Mirko Pierri puts it brilliantly: “These two architectural facades have… intrigued the students’ gaze who experience them. Now they are a source of curiosity… changing the perspective of those who cross this large courtyard.” Perhaps the new work can spark new conversations and encourage young minds to ponder, all while passing to the next class.
The E.C.O. project has turned the school into a buzzing hub that goes beyond textbooks. Hitnes’ work, with its echoes of ancient seas and critiques of human intervention, isn’t just for show. It invites the young (and the young at heart) to reflect, question, and discuss.
Director Paola Toto and the surrounding educational community have welcomed this vibrant addition, turning the Toscanelli Institute into a beacon of learning and environmental awareness. Imagine the usual school bell ringing, but instead of a rush to escape, there’s a buzz of students discussing evolution, art, and the environment. Here, you can trace your fingers over the evolution of life on these walls and think about our place in the world – all before the bell rings for your next class.
A quick look today at the Street Art for Rights Festival in Rome, Settecamini (IT), where this years theme was centered around the 17 goals of the UN 2030 agenda. It is not the only street art related effort that has chosen these goals as worthwhile to push, with the assumption that organizations like the United Nations and the World Economic Forum, neither of them an elected body, have our best interests in mind.
For artist Fabio Petani, himself an Italian and a climate activist with his work, his new mural is naturally in support of Goal 13: Climate Action.
“The graphic composition recalls an hourglass where the passage of time is marked by the inexorable melting of the ice,” he tells us, “which also modifies the climate of desert areas.”
“Fabio Petani is an artist who has always fought for this cause, and in this wall he has decided to talk about it by representing a glacier that is melting and transforming into its opposite: a desert,” organizers say on their Instagram page.
“The disappearance of glaciers and desertification is an ever closer reality if we don’t change something.”
Today’s new piece by street artists/collaborators Alice Pasquini and UNO is high above your head, but the people it depicts are walking the same streets with us every day.
Alice Pasquini and UNO. Rome, Italy. (photo courtesy of Alice Paquini)
The result of a springtime education program for students to discuss issues of gender equality, violence against women, and the empowerment of society to take positive steps forward – the mural represents the results of many discussions with 60 or so students, teachers, a journalist, a photographer, experts, and activists.
Alice Pasquini and UNO. Rome, Italy. (photo courtesy of Alice Paquini)
Inaugurated on June 8th at Liceo Classico Luciano Manara in Rome, Pasquini and UNO are proud to combine their talents. They say the mural title is translated generally as “’A mural for Equality: Equal Rights, Gender Differences” and is by the Municipality of Rome; Participation, Communication, and Equal Opportunities Department.
Alice Pasquini and UNO. Rome, Italy. (photo courtesy of Alice Paquini)
Italian street artist Etnik has created a new “Botanica Resistente” in Rome to commemorate “Liberation Day” in Italy, which marks April 25th as the end of the Nazi’s occupation and the liberation from Fascism.
He calls the colorful and abstractly organic 4-story work “Botanica Resistente”, which he says may have multiple readings. Mostly, it is “A direct reference to the toponymy that characterizes the whole district of Centocelle – with its streets named after plants, trees, and flowers.”
As a story of overcoming great obstacles and thriving in adversity, he also posits that “in the mural concrete blocks, asphalt and artificial works succumb to natural elements, giving life to a slow but gradual reconquest of spaces taken from nature.”
“The work is representative of familiar urban corners, on the border, where between asphalt and concrete, spontaneous plants are in a constant struggle for survival.”
Completed in conjunction with the help and guidance of Mirko Pierri, curator of urban art for the a.DNA association, Etnik took about 5 days to transform this facade of the Liceo Scientifico Statale Francesco D’Assisi, between via Castore Durante e Viale Palmiro Togliatti.
That is especially true when the work is at the typical scale of Italian artist Edoardo Tresoldi, whose massive mesh sculptures wowed the privileged guests at Coachella a couple of years ago in Indio, California. Those Neoclassical and Baroque architectural ghosts transported the imaginations of attendees there, but now they physically have been transported to Rome. Given a second life in Parco dei Daini, Villa Borghese, the show will run this autumn until mid-December.
Calling the installation Etherea, Tresoldi has entered it
into participation for “Back to Nature”, a new exhibition project curated by
Costantino d’Orazio. The artist says the works have been redesigned and
rearranged for the occasion and are meant to be part of a dialogue with the
trees of Villa Borghese. It’s good to see these works in a new context and
finding they have a similar character, still triumphant but more subdued
perhaps.
BACK TO NATURE Parco dei Daini, Villa Borghese, Rome Promoted by Roma Capitale, Assessorato alla Crescita culturale – Sovrintendenza Capitolina ai Beni Culturali Until December 13, 2020 Free entry
Rappelling down its’ side using a doubled rope coiled around the body and fixed at a higher point, NemO’s efficiently averts the complications of ladders or cherry pickers and gets right to work on this bunch of grapes.
“I have translated into an image what I perceive of this district,” he says of the Rome suburb of Primavalle, which he tells us has always had a populist, anti-fascist sentiment since it was formed in response to the gentrification of downtown.
“In the 1930s the people who lived in via della conciliazione, a street near San Pietro, were displaced from the centre of Roma and forced to move to the outskirts,” he says, as he describes this neighborhood that has hosted collectives and movements of the left wing historically.
Thus the collective nature of this bunch of grapes, one entity composed of a greater number. “A ‘bunch’ of grapes is a singular word, composed of many grapes,” he says. “I drew a leviathan where each grape has a face, a fragment of a district, an inhabitant of Primavalle.”
Fintan Magee typically can knock out one of his murals rather quickly in a matter of 4 or 5 days, thanks to experience and focus. In Rome for his new show at the Varsi Gallery, he had to work between the raindrops and wind of inclement weather to create this magic realism inspired image of a woman up to her knees in a rising tide.
Originally more of an aerosol painter, the Australian is now very painterly, perhaps inspired by expressionists but able to slightly bend reality to present an immediacy that nearly speaks audibly. This image again references rising sea levels and Climate Change, a commentary on our actions and their now-evident impact on the environment, animal habitats, and our communal ecosystem.
One might say that the continuing campaign of rising waters in his murals may obliquely refer to various political tides that are washing up on streets in cities. For certain, Magee continues to sharpen his craft as he travels the world.
Thank you to Giorgio and Lorenzo at Blind Eye Factory for sharing these photos and video with us. https://www.facebook.com/blindeyefactory
Fintan Magee’s wall project was produced by Galleria Varsi and Muracci nostri with the collaboration of “Vengo da Primavalle” and ” Bronx a Colori”.
“I wanted to go back to the millennial roots of public and monumental art,” MP5 tells us about the inspiration for the new intervention in Torpignattara entitled “Millennials”. The Naples born Roman artist draws upon contemporary themes as well as classical in their 2D black and white iconic paintings, always with a hint of theatrical scene-making.
In reference to the new pillars that appear to be holding up the roof on this building, MP5 tells us that the inspiration came from the carved female forms of the The Caryatid Porch at the Athens’ Acropolis around 400 BC.
Reinterpreting classical mythology with an eye on contemporary political and cultural crises and developments has driven much of MP5s work in public murals in many cities in countries such as Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Croatia, Slovenia and Sweden.
With “Millennials” the artist has just finished in Rome as part of her exhibition “Of Changes” at Wunderkammern Gallery, MP5 says they enjoyed the interaction the folks from the neighborhood while she painted. “Some sounded enthusiastic. Others asked me lots of questions about the meaning of it. In the end everybody was very nice and people from the neighborhood brought me food and treats all the time – or they would just pass by to check if everything was ok.”
Our special thanks to Wunderkammern for these exclusive images to share with BSA readers.
MP5 painted this wall in conjunction with his exhibition at “Of Changes” currently on view at Wunderkammern Gallery in Rome. Click HERE for further information.
It has been two days since the Sun was directly over the Equator and she is heading north to bring the Global North a lot of flowers and blossoms in the earliest spring since 1896. Today we have newly budded interventions from three cities in this warming hemisphere that may make you think of Spring 2016. See here new pieces from Amsterdam, Rome and Paris by sticker artist BonBon, wheat paster UNO and site-specific billboard jacker OX respectively.
Rome-based Street Artist UNO has on his mind the Surpreme Leader of North Korea, who Vanity Fair recently contrasted with a potential US President Trump. These don’t really look like Kim Jong-un’s features nor pallor but that fabulous hair is hitting the heights like a nuclear explosion! BTW Uno puts his own two-eye logo in the wallpaper pattern in the background. And no, we do not understand any of this at all.
And finally, new billboard takeovers by the minimalist conceptualist OX in Paris, whose installations are deeply sympathetic with their environment, often mimicking the colors/shapes/textures that are nearby. OX tells us, “I found these very “French!” Certainly the first one is.
Our weekly focus on the moving image and art in the streets. And other oddities.
Now screening :
1. Wall Writers: Graffiti in its Innocence
2. Pixel Pancho: “Teseo e il Minotauro” in Rome
3. Read The Label: Blood, Sweat and Years.
BSA Special Feature: Wall Writers: Graffiti in its Innocence
The depth of scholarship and research that Roger Gastman puts into graffiti history is only exceeded by his passion for the people and the culture that coalesced in the neighborhoods and streets of Philadelphia and New York in the genesis story of Wall Writers: Graffiti in its Innocence. He opens the doors to people who until now have been hidden and difficult to reach, and gives them an opportunity to tell the story of their lives then and how crucial the graffiti scene was to their experience of the city. He also examines the impact their work had on spurring the first of various art-in-the-streets scenes that evolved afterword.
Currently on tour for the 350 page tome and the documentary film, Gastman is bringing some of these original writers to cities to meet you, and possibly you may see the film’s narrator, Mr. John Waters.
In a city steeped in art history where every camera shot looks like a classic movie scene you have to be cognizant of the critical analysis that will be directed at your new mural from every Giovanni, Adriana, and Luca who are walking by or hanging out of the window. These are the countrymen and women of Pixelpancho so he takes it all into consideration and presents a classic of his own, merged with a steam-punked futurism of robots who are rather romantic in their own way.
A full length film about graffiti and skateboarding from this moment – a collection of skate, graff, rap, beatz, cops, vandalism, illegal mark-making, and legal murals that tells a story as seen by people who do it. How much is documentary and how much is fiction? Well, there probably wasn’t a soundtrack like this accompanying all of the original scenes, that’s for sure.
Happy blizzard weekend New York! Who knew it would be so much fun to run free literally in the streets thanks to a travel ban on all non-emergency cars. It’s a bit of genius really, because if you DO get hit by a car, its probably an ambulance.
Here’s our weekly interview with the street, this week featuring Anser, AX, Blek le Rat, BK Foxx, Cern, Domenico Romeo, Horace Panter, Key Detail, LMNOPI, Marthalicia, READ, Sean9Lugo, Solo Selci, This Is Awkward, and WERC.
BROOKLYN STREET ART LOVES YOU MORE EVERY DAY
