ETERNA is back again with Urban Art! Some of the best street artists who have been brightening up Rome’s streets with art and colors for years will be honoring the capital. The previous edition yielded great success: artists lent their talents to portraying their love for the city on 15 pallets, which are going to be donated to the Rome libraries after the event, one for each municipality. This year, street artists will donate to the city of Rome a proper act of passion and love: through a live performance, they’ll paint four Vespa Piaggio scooters with the theme: “Mother Rome: Love Her!”.
Maupal, Gabriele Tozzi, and Mosa One – who represents DRAGO’s “Cross the Streets” project – will be the four great Roman urban art talents who will interpret their love of the city by painting live on four Vespa Piaggio scooters provided by Bici e Baci. In so doing they’ll bring street art back to the streets, through the perfect match of street art and the two-wheeler that’s always been a symbol of quintessential Italy and good taste. Also an “Urban Stail Vespa” scooter has been provided, with all of the most representative stickers of Rome. Citizens are invited to decorate it with their own stickers!
The opening ceremony of the urban art events is scheduled for Saturday, April 21st from 2PM, and the performances will continue for two days. The four Vespa scooters will become true artworks and will be painted by:
MAUPAL: one of the hottest artists in Italy at the moment. The images of his “Super Pope” (a mural depicting Pope Francis as a superhero) went viral around the world, not to mention his piece of graffiti “The Yoga Queen”, an amusing and iconic representation of Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II. His technique and very personal style, which includes using acrylic spray (as with murals) on steel wool, has caught the attention of the general public and connoisseurs. His productions have reached International exposure and have been showcased abroad, such as in Seoul and London, at “Le Dame Art Gallery”, where he was the protagonist of events like “The World Travel Market – London” with the site-specific installation “Bagaglio a mano” [“Hand Luggage”]. And if that weren’t enough, he already partook in Eterna, with his “Roman Tao”, to resounding success.
DANIELE TOZZI: a master of lettering, just like those artists who manage to create true artworks through graphics and calligraphy. His visual art is linked to writing: the love for letters spills into studying different techniques and tools, until finding a unique and distinctive style. One of the most appreciated lettering artists in Europe, Daniele Tozzi boasts many international collaborations and works abroad. He started in the underground scene of the 1990’s and gradually grew in the visual arts with a more and more ambitious progression.
MOSA ONE for CROSS THE STREETS: The young Mosa One will represent “Cross the Streets”, a project by DRAGO publishing house, which has previously participated in a show at MACRO – Rome’s Contemporary Art Museum. It lays the foundation to tell the history of the manifestation of Graffiti and Street Art, tying up loose ends of one of the most influential creations of the past 40 years in the arts and media. The scope of “Cross the Streets” is to examine, globally, the power and fascination of this multimedia artform, and to extrapolate its guidelines, the world pioneers, the socio-cultural trends it sparked, and, locally, the history of graffiti in Rome.
Event Site: eternacompleannodiroma.com
Maupal Site: mauropallotta.com
Daniele Tozzi Site: danieletozzi.it
