Urban Interventions / Intervenzione Urbane

by Alexander Dellantonio    |   Issue 1 (2012), Mobilisations, Interventions, and Cultural Policy

ABSTRACT     Urban Interventions is a series of collages by Alexander Dellantonio that take the urban terrain with its rapid changes as the matrix of inquiry, presenting the artists reflections on the city. The strong colours used by the artist echo the city’s images, places, people and situations and tattered billboard posters and manifestos torn off the buildings the militants fly-posted them on are reassembled to show the city and its inhabitants in movement. Dellantonio appropriates parts of the city and seeks to return them to the spectator. In so doing, these works not only engage the urban terrain as a space of politics, they also raise questions about mediation in the context of the current crisis of political representation that is being expressed by movements across the world, whether for example in Tahrir or Syntagma Square, at Occupy Wall Street or during the public sector strikes in the UK.

KEYWORDS      Bologna, collage, Florence, manifesto, protest, urban
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This work is realised on canvas with the remains of tattered manifestos that have been molten together with glue. The strips of paper are from walls in Bologna and Florence. The piece reveals the elements that determine its structure – the composition of the paper strips and the colours that are used provide the balance between colours and images. Anyone can see whatever they want to in this image. Yet, what is interesting is that it is possible to find so much stuff on the walls and in the streets that can be used for art without having to spend a penny. One can simply reuse materials that others have discarded as junk. In this case, instead of putting something into the street, you take from the street the materials with which you then give back to society in the form of art.

Questa opera e stata realizzata su tela con soli strappi di manifesti poi incollati tra di loro. I manifesti provengono dai muri delle città di Bologna e Firenze. Ognuno in quest'immagine può vedere cosa desidera anche se sono presenti alcuni elementi che ne determinano la struttura. Gli strappi di manifesti non sono messi a caso, sono il risultato del bilanciamento tra colori eimmagini. La cosa interessante però è che si può recuperare dalla strada molto materiale per la creazione artistica senza spendere un penny, riutilizzando qualcosa che gli altri reputavano spazzatura o degrado. In questo caso al posto di mettere nella strada, ad esempio pitturando su un muro di dominio pubblico, si prende dalla strada per ridarlo alla società in forma di arte.

See related commentaries by Gavin Grindon and Özden Firat (this issue).

[This article was originally published at http://www.culturalstudiesassociation.org/lateral/issue1/dellantonio.html. A PDF of the original version has been archived at https://archive.org/details/Lateral1.]

Author Information

Alexander Dellantonio

Alexander Dellantonio studied at the Academy of Art and Design in Bolzano, as well as at the Academy of Fine Art in Florence, Italy. His art practice draws on 1920 avant-garde constructivism, the techniques of collage and décollage, and the reuse of used materials. He takes his inspiration from street life and views his artistic and political activity as intimately interwoven. Over the last two years, he has been very interested in so-called street art, which is one of the guiding threads in his work on tattered manifestos.