Whilst admiring the broad range of street art at the Scala Mercalli exhibit at Rome’s auditorium, we were overcome with a feeling deja vu. “I’ve seen this figure before!” one extraordinarily perceptive eCooler exclaimed while standing in front of a wall painted by Ozmo. “Yes!” another shouted. “But where? Where? Where?”
And that, dear readers, is the moment that the eCool team realized that that the figure around which we had gathered (see above, left) was a quote from Botticelli’s stunning painting of The Punishment of Korah in the Sistine Chapel (see above, right).
Transplanted into a composition in which visual references to canonical art & culture intermingle with pop culture images, the figure is smited by a thunderous Nike swoosh rather than by Yahweh. The effect, frankly, appears to be the same.
More images from the Scala Mercalli exhibition:
