Tourists and Romans alike often complain about the amount of graffiti on the city’s walls and they’re right to be outraged by the innumerable and artless tags that mar most buildings in the Eterna.
But Rome’s street art scene is much more than a bunch of high school kids with markers. There are some fine artists out there whose work grapples with current issues as well as with the city’s majestic (but weighty) past.
Here at the eCool Compound, we pay special attention to any street art that strives to re-present history and culture and faithful readers will recall the many posts we’ve dedicated to art works with mythological and historical subjects, from the She-Wolf to the 7 Kings and from Bernini’s Blessed Ludovica Albertoni to the Colosseum.
Thus, we were quite dismayed when we recently realized that we’d missed a stellar exhibit at the Dorothy Circus Gallery in which street stars Sten, Lex, and Lucamaleonte took on Dante.
From the stenciled cutout of Virgil and Dante on the outside of the building (see top photo) to the artful images sprayed on the gallery walls (see above and below) we’re totally taken.
The exhibit, City Slang – The Street Comes to the Gallery By DCG and Micol Di Veroli – was on display from January 22th – February 22th, 2008 and featured works by Sten, Lex, Lucamaleonte, TV Boy, Koralie, SuperKitch, and GarCrew. You can see representative works by clicking here.
Interested in Dante? Then you’ll be happy to know that the city of Florence has just issued a pardon to Dante, forgiving him for political crimes committed 700 years ago. They’ve also awarded him the city’s highest honor, the Fiorino d’Oro or the Golden Florin. For the whole story, we recommend Peter Popham’s article in The Independent.
