After the unexpected first half of my summer in Malta between teenagers and boat parties, it’s about time to get some work done and behave as a professional street art blogger.
Festival season is about to begin and my 2017 schedule is already pretty hectic -but I’m going to take the lid off my summer plans one festival at a time. ;)
The first urban art festival I’m attending is IBUG in Chemnitz (Germany). Keep reading →
After attending so many urban art festivals in the last year, it was so refreshing to wander around the alleys of Tel Aviv! Here the street art is still young, spontaneous, and new to my eyes.
Known as the city that never sleeps, Tel Aviv has a growing street art scene that is vibrant and very diverse. While some artists directly address political issues, others just want to beautify the streets and use their colourful art to make people forget about their problems (and the fact that they are living in a war zone).
When people asked me “Why Bristol?” my reply was always the same: “street art”.
The quiet hiss of the can as someone sprayed, and the shrill metal clacking as they shook it are the most distinctive sounds in Bristol, a city known more for the graffiti on its streets than for the paintings inside its museums.
“We are accused of gentrification so often now, as if it’s our fault” – Fin Dac
As we sat down at what –since then- has become the pub where I had a beer with Fin Dac, my first instinct was to ask him about the unglorious side of street art, a.k.a. gentrification, as his old piece in Rome (Quadraro neighbourhood) was vandalized several times by a “fiercly resistant” local.
“If you gonna do something,
if you gonna actually take the time to do something,
you have to do it 100%,
you have to give everything you can,
otherwise it is not worth doing it.”
Interview with Dan Kitchener Keep reading →
I won’t write an introduction to Banksy’s street art. You all know who Banksy is, at least as much as you don’t know who Banksy is. Unless you are from Bristol; in that case, I’m sure you have a Banksy story to share with street art bloggers like me, perhaps about the time you were hanging out together in Easton. I heard so many Banksy stories all over the summer and, although none of them helped me figure out the identity of the guy (and –honestly- I don’t even care about it), they all highlighted a fundamental point: whoever Banksy is, Bristol is incredibly proud of him.
As one more year passed by, I found myself thinking about my happiest moments from 2016 and –undoubtedly- attending the legendary Nuart street art festival in Stavanger (Norway) was one of them.
Apart from a couple of interviews (with Axel Void and Henrik Uldalen), I still haven’t told you anything about that amazing experience, although you might have seen my round-up of outdoor and indoor murals and my recap of Nuart Plus academic conferences on I Support Street Art, the website I was representing at the festival.
“Nice job you have” he said, lighting up a cigarette while walking towards me.
“Your job is likewise amazing” I replied, pointing to the couple cuddling in the darkness that was taking shape on the long wall of a derelict building in the industrial area of Stavanger.
“Well, I’d loved to be a food critique and eat my way around the world. But I ended up painting.”
As the numbers of legal walls and self-proclaimed art curators slowly increase in the capital, Rome’s street art scene is beginning to attract internationally renowned street artists, curious street art lovers eager to discover a less classical side to Rome, and growing attention from the institutions.
Some of our local artists are now invited to paint abroad, so we can say that Rome’s proverbial parochialism is fading away year after year, although the majority of the works realized on the streets of Rome are still amateurish, especially when compared to those abroad.
