OUTDOOR vernissage in Garbatella

Friday evening I went on "OUTDOOR" vernissage, which was held in Palladium Theatre in Garbatella. Garbatella is famous for lotti's (former housing units) and thanks for particular urban planning & architecture in the past 20 years this neighbourhood has transformed from a poor working class district into a in a hip residential area. And no wonder- Garbatella with it's cozy little villas and delifghtful flowery balconies is like a small garden city. Anyway, this is the first street art exhibition on currently occupied public housing in Italy with the aim to show how street art can enhance urban spaces. And let me tell you, I have a big weekness for street art, quality street art ofcourse (read: for street art artists).

Me and Concetta with all the chit chat got distracted and went on the opposite direction of where the indicated buildings with the art "on" them were. It wasn't hard to mistaken, as many buildings in Garbatella are covered with different decorations and paintings, writings (with strong political messages).



Writings like "Ti Amo" are as common as pigeons in Rome, this caught my eye for it's colour though.



All you need is wall... and a permission. It was a great thing that Rome's Municipio gave the permission for such an innovative thing.. I was surprised first when I heard..





The artists:
STEN & LEX
check out their flickr (click!)
JBROCK
check out he's myspace (click!)
l'ATLAS
check out the homepage (click!)
C215
check out he's myspace (click!)





;)



I loved the colours!
















And here are the party pictures:



















































NB NB NB, as not bad.
And as an artist I mean...






DJ









The exhibition is held until 15th of June, if in Rome, make sure you get there!!

info@nufactory.it
+39 3391798650
major details on OUTDOOR website (click!)

PS!

What do you think of street art?
Is it something you think a city needs to refresh it's look?

"What begins in the work of Caravaggio is, quite simply, modern painting."

Today I accidentally spent a really nice touristic day in Rome. Accidentally, because I was supposed to go to school and catch up with history & etc. and instead I caught myself waiting in the line for two hours to see the Caravaggio's exhibition in the Scruderie del Quirinale Gallery. This is what happened: we have our dear friend Maris from Estonia over our place and there's so much to catch up with and last night, guess what, we totally lost our time track. The good company, all the chit chat of the world plus a bottle of great wine did their job well (too well I'd say). Anyway I decided I'd wake up an hour later and eventually everything went well. My timing was perfect, I was at the bus stop 5 min earlier, trust me this is RARE, but I think someone up there didn't like my easy luck at all so huge traffic appeared on my way just out of nowhere. But, as my to-do list is like what.. a meter long ? I easily found some annoying things needed to be done, after what I thought I should definitelly try and go to see the Caravaggio's exhibition. The exhibition has been on already from the end of February but the excitement doesn't seem to want to calm down and the gallery is "over-peopled" all the time.. the que was really long and I spent two hours under the sun standing melting... and it was SO WORTH IT! I think I have only once seen another so greatly arranged exhibition in my life (it was Basquiat's, in 2008 autumn, in Palazzo Ruspoli).





Let me tell a little about Caravaggio: one of the greatest baroque painters in Italy, he was born in Milan in 1571 and he died in 1610. In the 90's when he arrived in Rome he was discovered by the "art patrons" (cardinals) and soon enough he got the most important commissions of his time: the Martyrdom of Saint Matthew and Calling of Saint Matthew, delivered in 1600. But there is no wonder, his work was revolutionary. He ignored all conventional "rules" of classical painting and introduced a much more radical and naturalistic attitude. Dramatical scenography characterized of a great use of chiaroscuro (light and shadow) combined with a careful attention of real life helped him to take the artistical taste of his time to a whole new level. His personal life influenced his late work quite a lot: Caravaggio, as busy busy leading a very tumultuous life, was constantly involved in scandalous intrigues and troubles. The culmination of his "bad boy" fame was in 1606 when he accidentaly killed a young man and was forced to escape from the authorities until his death. If you care, read more about him on wiki (click!). Here's just few his works:

This was my absolute favourite...
Don't you just loooveee that flirty smile of his?!

Because of the cloudy cloudy wheather in Europe our friend is "forced" to extend her vacation in Rome (sounds terrible, right?:D) and we've been seeing around a bit with her. I love it so much, when people come to visit, it's a perfect chance to enjoy your city as a tourist and see it from a whole different point of view, to LIVE IT as if you were on a vacation yourself. Especially in a city like Rome, where there are places to discover until exhaustion!

PS!
Did you like this post and are you intersted in reading more stuff about Rome and it's people & art & food & history ?
Let me know, I'll try my best to come up with topics which interest You the most;)

Information about the exhibition:

20 February - 13 June
ticket: 10eur/7,50eur
audioguide (english/italian) : 4eur (I SUGGEST!)
opening hours: Monday to Thursday 9:30am to 8:00pm ... continue reading

Curated by Rossella Vodret e Francesco Buranelli
Scuderie del Quirinale homepage (click!)
Tel. 06 39967500

"Painting is but other word for feeling"

Caspar David Friedrich

I've been studing history of arts for the past four years now. The program is divided in 5
parts: 1st year) Ancient Art, 2nd) The Medieval Art (Early Christian, Insular, Byzantine, Romanesque and Gothic art), 3rd) The Renaissance and this year, we started with Mannerism (which evolved in Baroque which was replaced by Neoclassicism) and arrived to Romanticism.

I have always loved this subject a lot, it's the basis of everything. But even so I hadn't realized how "annoying" the subject had got with the continuous re-emergence of Classical Art or the Catholic Church's irritating interruptions.. The initial enthusiasm had kinda faded away and I even wasn't aware of it.. until .. we started with Romanticism. I felt so liberatory when we firsts started analyzing these revolutionarily brilliant artists with a totally new approach to looking and feeling art.

Fresh.
Original.
Involving.
Deep.
Mysterious.
Nostalgic.
Intimate.
Just.. Genial!

In visual arts this complex cultural movement deepens many different aspects and relevant themes of the age: nationalism and patriotism (question majorly developed in France), regain of moral and religious values, individualism and the concept of artist as "the genius" who's destiny is to follow his inner demon, nostalgy for the Medieval Age, love for exotic places and fantastical dreams (often nightmares), recovery of an intimate relationship with nature and the image of sublime: a delifghtful horror provoked by the wonders of nature (Edmund Burke, read this article about beauty and the image of sublime), the last is my favourite aspect of the movement. In the order of my preference (the most favourite artist who represents majorly the image of sublime is in the end):

Théodore Géricault (click!)

Ferdinand Victor Eugène Delacroix (click!)







Caspar David Friedrich (click!)
















John Constable (click!)













Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (click!)




Joseph Mallord William Turner (click!)


















J.M.W. Turner is my favourite amongst romantical painters.
His work is so inspiring. I think no words needed.

What's your favourite cultural and artistical movement in the art history?
And if you're a lover of romanticism, who's your favourite painter?

PS! If you care click! to read on wiki about Romanticism.