Vera Bugatti (IT)

<div>The artwork comes from a contamination between my artistic imagination and the articulated world told to me by the artisans of my city. The theme is that of the complex relationship between tradition and innovation, non-antithetical concepts to be thought of in necessary coexistence, re-evaluating what we often consider otherness. The fruition of the work, in a marked 320 m2 anamorphosis, presupposes the search for a different, unusual, unexpected point of view.
<br>The title is a sort of oxymoron that combines the concept of tradition (handed down) with the idea of the future as a part of time that has not taken place and is therefore unknowable. We therefore speak of a Tradition understood as in the philosophical sphere, dynamic and active over the generations.
<br>Two characters who represent tradition and innovation, with different skills and resources, deliberately very diversified by age. The elderly man in work clothes represents the craftsman as per collective imagination, the workshop master who hands down ancient knowledge, manual skills, technical ability. The young woman wearing a futuristic headdress with visor and headphones symbolizes 4.0 craftsmanship, born from the technologies of the fourth industrial revolution. Her hands hold a box from which tools related to the artisan world come out. Both look at the observer, recall him from the street, the girl is direct, self-confident, the man is thoughtful.
<br>The transmission of knowledge is perceived in the passage of the box. The young woman has received it and turns to hand it to the artisans of the future, represented in black silhouettes in the light coming from one of the virtual windows. They appear almost evanescent but their role is not yet known, an open point remains. In my opinion we will return to manual skills, to the single piece, but it is not known.
<br>A swarm of white figures can then be seen above the upper right window (the real window of the building) and also on its ideal (fictitious) continuation on the left, until you reach the metaphorical 'house' that connects the stick to the ' A 'of the luminous writing. They are the shadows (luminous as signifiers) of the workers of the past.
<br>The house placed like a lantern on the top of the stick refers to the iconography of the pilgrim, replacing the shell and the emptied pumpkin with the idea of a safe place, of welcome, of dialogue. It is held by the workshop master, custodian of tradition and the spread of techniques throughout the world.
<br>The mural was to be completed in the spring of 2020. Then the project was postponed for the reasons we all know. I therefore reflected on how to touch the Covid19 theme without making the piece dramatic, which is not easy on an iconographic level. A mask and a pair of crumpled gloves emerge from the toolbox. We have overcome the most acute phase of the pandemic also through solidarity works and therefore these elements are supplied in the knowledge kit. However, they are not fully inserted into the box, they hang from a hammer. I deliberately didn't nail them to the wall. The hammer is available to do this but we know that the risk is always present and that perhaps this bad experience is not closed (or that it could repeat itself, in other forms).
<br>On a symbolic level, I therefore wanted to play with perspective again. In fact, if the theme of the pandemic is only evoked by photographing the work from the correct point of view, it becomes more and more significant as you approach the right side of the painting, where you realize how the space occupied by the mask and gloves is very large. Hope therefore, but also a warning to caution</div>

Futura Traditio

Jupiterfab

<div><em>The mural in Via Milano 140, Brescia (Italy) is a conceptual and graphic summary of a long term project (4 years) that Jupiterfab worked in the same area, together with the Mid School “Romanino”. The school host a high percentage of kids who were born in Italy but from immigrants families (under the Italian law, they are not Italian till they are 18 and they can apply).<br>
<br>The artist is Italian but he has been living in different countries for the last 16 years. Probably for being himself a migrant is very focused on this topic.
<br>The mural shows 5 kids from different ethnicities on a treasure hunt. The treasure they are looking for is Italy. The audience can grasp it because 4 of them have a surprised gaze looking at an ancient map of Italy, that the central character is holding.
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<br>The message are several and different, which the audience is free to explore and find. However there are two main important points Jupiterfab wants to stress:
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<br>-&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The importance that Italy represent for new generations (no matter if fully Italian, new comers or in process to get the Italian citizenship) in terms of opportunity
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<br>-&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;The care, respect and value that we need to give to this country, because it is a precious treasure in our hands
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<br>The mural is facing a redeveloped area that will open in a couple of months with a public library and a little park.</em></div>

Treasure seekers

<pre>A giant old female holds a stick on which a strange jay is placed. The bird carries in its beak a tiny dented alarm clock, neutral mirror of transience, miniaturized theater of human obsessions.
On the stick hangs a rickety balance that compares the weight of a human heart to a sack full of money, a sort of overturned psychostasis that replaces the Maat feather with a sense of possession, so sneaky and rooted today.
It is the ‘having' that prevails over ‘being', to which we should instead aspire intimately.
It is a symbolic work. Suggestions ranging from the Egyptian Book of the Dead to Aeschylus, from the experiments of the early twentieth century on the weight of the soul to Iñárritu, from the iconographies of the Archangel Michael to Paul Auster.
Or, simply, a reflection from which we cannot avoid: in the end, even though we are small, we are accomplices of others' suffering, of a collapsing planet, of discrimination and inequality, of innocent deaths.
Hope, resignation? I would prefer to say that there is an alternative and that it is not too late to change.</pre><div><br></div>

Artworks in Brescia