These are very cool. They are the ceramic sculptures Ericailcane has made specially for FAME Fest. (Check out his cool prints here.)
And this is very uncool. The people who control the wall above had given Ericailcane permission to paint a mural on it. Soon after he began, they changed their minds. As Angelo so eloquently puts it, “We were pissed as never before.” Me too.
While Blu is working an animation for FAME festival with David Ellis, he also painted this wall (or maybe it’s part of the animation, I’m not positive). Amazing amazing amazing. I just love it.
And here is the story behind the wall, just as interesting as the art itself (via the FAME Festival blog)
If you’re new to FAME festival, you probably dont know that Grottaglie is 10 minutes far from Taranto. if you’ve been in Taranto, you probably remember that the city has a massive ugly factory called ILVA (one of the biggest steel factory in europe).this factory is destroying the territory and killing a lot of workers ’cause of its big lack of security measures and high environmental pollution. the direct consequence is that Taranto has one of the highest rate of death by cancer in italy.
As a plus, the smartest politicians from Grottaglie’s town council allowed, back in ‘96, the construction of a very filthy special wastes dump right outside the city. they did not inform the people, they did not ask anybody’s opinion, they just did it. i wish i could wonder WHY they did it.
this said,
i usually like to think that every piece of art can have different meaning, depending on who is looking at it and from wich perspective he is looking from. this time, i prefer to think that we’re all looking at a mere mirror of the actual situation we’re living in.especially for our mean local politicians, none of them excluded. i hope that they can recognise themselves in these huge faces and feel disgusted for what they’ve done to their people.
Via Unurth
Sam3 posted some photos today of the pottery he’s been making at FAME Festival. I agree with Sebastian at Unurth on this one, these would be great to have at home.
Via Sam3’s blog
Just a quick note to show off one of Vhils’ pieces for FAME Fest. There is something quite ethereal about this work, which was made by scratching the plaster off a wall in the old part of Grottaglie. Great placement for it, too.
Vhils is also working on some gallery pieces while he’s in town for the exhibition at the festival’s conclusion.
Elisa x
FAME Festival is shaping up to be pretty cool. Here’s some of the latest work from Sam3 and Mark Jenkins.
Via Arrested Motion
Last year’s FAME Festival by Studiocromie was probably Italy’s street art event of the year, and on September 19th it will be back again with an equally impressive group of artists.
Last year, the artists did some amazing work on the street (like this JR piece below), so hopefully that trend coninues.
If I were putting together a street art festival, this is pretty close to my dream line up. To name just a few of the highlights, Erica La Cane did very impressive work on the street at FAME last year, SAM3 and Blu always impress me with their unique styles, Mark Jenkins is one of the top artists when it comes to disruptive realism, and Vhils and Judith Supine are just plain awesome.
I’m looking into flights to Italy for this September.
