Street Art: Florence #24 (Part 1 of 2)

Followers of this blog already know that we enjoy street art--viewing it, photographing it, blogging about it.

Recently, we had the great pleasure of touring Florence's off-the-beaten track streets and alleys viewing street art and sampling typical Florentine food along the way. Our guide was Florentine native and Ph.D. art historian Lucia Montuschi, who developed the tour after learning all about Florence's current street art scene.  Lucia guided us through Oltrarno neighborhoods she knows well since she grew up there.  (Oltrarno means across the Arno river, away from the historic, tourist-packed center of Florence.)

During the tour, we viewed a lot of street art--both familiar (Blub and Clet) and unfamiliar (Euri and Carla Bruttini).  Lucia shared information about the artists' backgrounds, how they operate, why most maintain anonymity and what their messages are.

• Most of the artists are Italians.  There are exceptions, such as Clet (French) and Euri (Polish), but even they live in Florence.
• Most are formally trained artists.  
• Most maintain their anonymity and work at night to avoid intervention by objecting locals and the police and to avoid prosecution.  Some also work anonymously to safeguard their daytime identities.
• Many of the artists know each other and even share symbols in their respective artworks.  A typical image seen in some Florentine street art is the red heart symbol.
• Some artists work mostly in Italy, while others display their work in streets elsewhere in Europe (France and Germany) and elsewhere in the world (such as Clet in Japan and the U.S.).

In addition to viewing street art, our tour included stops at some shops and eateries along the way.  (Before starting the tour, Susan said she would eat anything she was offered, except tripe, a typical Florentine food.  You can read what happened in Part 2.)   

The tour was fantastic.  If you like street art, getting off the beaten track or just doing something out of the ordinary, then you would greatly enjoy the tour.  

So, please enjoy a photographic compilation of what we experienced while on the Florence Street Art (& Food) tour. 

During the tour, we saw some works by Italian artist Mhestre that were new to us. 

Internationally famous Italian actor Marcello Mastroianni

We discovered an artist whose work we had not seen before.  He is known as Yuri and hails from Poland.

A da Vinci flying machine

Renaissance architect Filippo Brunelleschi inheriting the important mathematical formulas that he used to build the huge dome of Florence's cathedral

Another street artist we learned about is Carla Bruttini, who has a gallery in the San Niccolò section of the Oltrarno.

Poster for a Street Art Festval

Like many street artists, Carla is active on social media, such as Instagram. You can view her website here.

Another we learned about 22-year-old male artist Ache77, whose 1+1=1 artwork we have spotted all over Florence

In the 1+1=1 stencil pictured below, someone has added some black marks and a symbol apparently to convey a comment about Ash 77's message.  Our guide Lucia explained that the public's interaction with street art is usually a welcome consequence of using the street for public viewing of art.    

Another artist we learned about is female artist Oioiii. We have seen her artwork our Florence and mistakenly concluded that the artist was another street artist, JamesBoy, because of the use of halos. We were wrong.  Halos are another symbol shared by some street artists.   The name Oioiii is based on the Italian emotional expression oioiii, signyifying pain or pleasure.  The artwork below is an homage to Vermeer's Girl with a Pearl Earring.

Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer (1665)

Another favorite is JamesBoy, an Italian (despite the English name).  We know JamesBoy from his halo and wings painted around town.  During our tour, we discovered a different JamesBoy genre pictured below.

Other street art we have around Florence is pictured below.  The artist is apparently the girlfriend of another street artist Exit Enter whose work you might recall from this blog.  We enjoy seeing the hard-to-classify creature engaging in varied activities.

During our tour, we saw the work many other street artists.  Here is a sampling.

In addition to street art, we also spotted street poetry.  Lucia noted there is a new movement to share poetry in public. 

During our walk, we passed by two eateries.  The first one pictured below has a chalk board above its doorway.  The owner shares a daily message on the board, like the message below:  "Family is strange.  Not dogs." 

Another local eatery has become an informal gathering place for street artists.  The exterior and interior are decorated with street art, such as the Mona Lisa by Blub in the photo below.

Of course, during our tour, we spotted many works by Blub.  Lucia knows a lot about Blub, other than Blub's identify, a carefully guarded secret.  Blub is apparently Italian but age and gender are unknown.  Luca explained the genesis and motif of Blub's work.  Blub, while visiting Spain, was looking for artistic inspiration about what to paint.  One day, he spotted a boy wearing swim goggles.  The image stayed with Blub and developed into presenting famous Renaissance portraits with googles added and shaded in light blue.  The name Blub signifies the noise of exhaled air bubbles.  According to Lucia, Blub's message "l'arte sa nuotare" ("art can swim") means that art from the past can survive and still inspire. 

An early Blub:  Leonardo da Vinci

A later Blub, with color other than blue, white and black

Early (left) and later (right) Blub's.  The image on the right replaces an earlier version that was mostly blue.

This Blub depicting Italian Renaissance painted Antonello da Messina has been marked with black pen and spray paint, an apparent disapproving comment. 

Another Blub with additions.  At one point, a piece of the paper was torn off.  The artist returned and re-drew the portion of the image that was torn away.  Also, two messages were added:  "Art knows love" ("Arte sa amore") and "Free Assange".

Below is a very early Blub.  It is perhaps the very first Blub.   

Early Blub, possibly #1, mostly blue and black.  The Venus goes blub.

Next Up:  Food and More Street Art