killing denouement

Wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up and hit these three magic keystrokes and erase the West Bank barrier wall à la Filippo Minnelli? Just like the IDF is systematically shredding, subsuming and erasing Palestinian identity? [via] Or rig the adverts that plaster city streets to instead display little broken image icons? I bet such a day with hyper-electronicised and centrally controlled advertisements isn’t too far off at all. In the meantime, there’s the lofi version – Andrea and Kiko’s little broken link icons on peeling walls plastered ready for a new slew of consumerist visuals. So simple, so effective.

Filippo Minelli is a conceptual-artist with a graffiti-background engaging in what he terms ‘urban communication’, as opposed to the ‘traditional graffitti’ of the 90s.urban communication. According to his site he was among the pioneers/hard reppers for the Italian scene, and has altered the aesthetic of said conventional graffiti with his interventions contextualized with the location’. From his site:

His artworks continue to have the instinct and the naturalness of his urban inscriptions. The surfaces perfume of a conceptual poetry, sometimes with an abstract and childish mark, sometimes sckratching and with a strong impact. The sperimantations, ironic and introspective at the same time, have as common denominator a strong and immediate couction can be found from the north-italian countryside to the big european cities, arriving in the middle of the Himalaya-region in buddhist atmospheres on the memorable Kathmandu, in Nepal. His research obliaged him to think about the city, and the relation between the new ecosystem and people.

He is also mentioned as being a regular contributor to art and desgn vanguard magazines. I don’t know if the term is commonly in use in the art world, but that tickled me no end. Like elfo, he’s an Itallian artist who works in non, or not-so urban envoronments. Even more unapolagetically at that. Carving into trees, spraypainting corn in a field, propping up “almsot dead” rodents with placards, it’s all there. Rather ironically, protesting the use of graffiti in the countryside. I can’t help but feel faintly put off at the slight vibe of obnoxiousness, though this could be just me being overly sensitive. I do however love the large scale text-based work, like the hotpink Ignorance letterings or this illustration of the Hong Kong Dream.

And as for graffiti in the countryside? I don’t know how I feel about that at all. Seems almost disrespectful, a bit of a spoiler. Perhaps this is because I have lived in very urban areas all my remembered life, most of them in a desert in that I value nature, greenery, the countryside even more? Maybe the toxicity aspect – I’d probably feel much better about installations and sculptures than various paints. Or is it a question of altering private or state property as opposed to communal land; inanimate concrete and bricks as opposed to living flora (and even a small half-dead hedgehog). Is or should there be any difference between public/street art in urban or non urban areas?