The Weird and the Urban. The aesthetic experience of ruins in Italian street art

The history of Italian street art appears to be ingrained in interstitial architectures such as empty lots or abandoned and unfinished buildings, ruins in which since the late 1990s a new generation of outsider artists coming from graffiti writing have been developing new unsanctioned forms of mural...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Vittorio Parisi
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Université de Bourgogne 2023-06-01
Series:Interfaces
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Online Access:https://journals.openedition.org/interfaces/6696
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Summary:The history of Italian street art appears to be ingrained in interstitial architectures such as empty lots or abandoned and unfinished buildings, ruins in which since the late 1990s a new generation of outsider artists coming from graffiti writing have been developing new unsanctioned forms of muralism, based on science-fictional, fantasy, and horrific representations and imageries. This article aims therefore to revisit the history and aesthetics of Italian graffiti writing and street art through the prism of British philosopher Mark Fisher’s concept of the weird, by questioning the aesthetic, socio-anthropological, and critical interaction between street artworks and ruins: what role have ruins played in the development of graffiti writing and street art in Italy? And how, in return, have graffiti writing and street art transformed the aesthetic experience of ruins?
ISSN:2647-6754