XM24, Blu, Bologna 2016
street art is ephemeral
At the beginning of 2016 a dispute heated in Bologna, north of Italy, between Fabio Roversi Monaco and the community of street and urban painting artists, supported by the wider community of artists and activists. Monaco was planning an exhibition of paintings ripped of walls and justifying the process for conservation reasons. I was concerned by several aspects of the situation, having worked in cultural heritage and contemporary art projects in the past 12 years.
I decided to start a photogrammetric recording of street paintings in Bologna and initiated the project in February with the building of XM24, painted by Blu.
A few weeks later on a Friday night Blu, with a team of faithful friends, overpainted all his paintings in the City, 20 years of work, and stunned the whole community.
I have worked with and I am following closely the work of people who record on location works of art, artefacts, entire walls, rocks or tombs, in 2 and 3 dimensions. These last few years the field has encountered a sharp increase in interest for the safeguarding and conservation of art and monuments at risk through climate related, geological or human deliberate or not destructions.