Move aside, Michelangelo – modern Florence is all about open air art, as Clet and Blub channel the city’s Renaissance masters in the streets
Once home of Da Vinci, Caravaggio and Botticelli, hotbed of the 15th century artistic Renaissance – modern Florence is about more than the Old Masters, as the Italian city’s storied heritage and world-class museums inspire open-air works by bold trendsetting talents
Florence. The name immediately conjures images of grand de’ Medici palaces, succulent “super Tuscan” wines and sun-dappled hills dotted with 15th-century church spires. The city is the jewel of the Renaissance for having given the world writers Dante and Machiavelli, polymaths Da Vinci and Galileo, artists Caravaggio and Botticelli, and architect Brunelleschi.
Its influence was felt across Europe, and its legacy can be seen in world-famous galleries and museums such as the Palazzo Pitti, the Gallerie degli Uffizi and the Galleria dell’Accademia, home to Michelangelo’s David. Such was the breadth of learning and artistry exhibited by many of the city’s greatest sons and daughters that the phrase “Renaissance man/woman” was coined.
Street art, like any artistic form, is a witness of its time, I believe it will take on an ever deeper meaning in coherence with the environment
But there’s more to Florence’s art scene than just its 500-year-old Renaissance oils and domed cathedrals. Street art is gaining traction in one of the globe’s most historic cities, and anyone interested in Florence’s future would do well to add it to their itinerary when the city opens up again.
“The first thing you’ll find easily, if you have a good look when you’re walking around, are some installations on the street,” says Yan Blusseau, curator of Beast Gallery (Via di Mezzo). “There will be some by Clet or Moradi. Just look around and you’re likely to get curious about it. The artists’ studios themselves are easy to find. Florence is a city of the past in the Unesco centre, but the periphery is quite independent.”
Blusseau is referring to relocated French artist Clet Abraham – or Clet – who’s been making a splash in Florence since he started altering basic street signs. He’s made the familiar white stripe of “Do not enter” into a dog bone, and spun the running schoolchildren into divine admonitions, among dozens of others.
Traditional Florentines may have found it unnerving at first, but eventually his irreverent and engaging work caught the attention of city authorities. In 2012 Clet installed a 12-metre nose on the medieval tower of San Niccolò. Its door became a mouth, its windows became eyes. Later he added L’Uomo Commune (the common man) on the Ponte alle Grazie.
“I’m trying to give an example that it’s possible to make more harmony between authority and freedom,” Clet told CBS News last year. As the artist began to rise in prominence with his work on the street signs of Florence, Turin, Milan and beyond, Blusseau believes that Florentines started to reconsider the unconventional. “They started to think it was possible to include this in the city’s art culture,” says Blusseau.
Street art really started to take off after Blusseau’s 2014 Finestra Con Vista (Window with a View), wherein a mob of 31 artists used doors and windows that were closed off for any number of reasons over the course of the city’s history to create new images. “You have an empty frame, out in the street, and it’s fascinating to use these frames for art. Each [artist] chose a few frames and all started working the same night. It was fantastic.” The result was a unique open-air museum – at least until the unplanned works were removed.
