MACRO hosts a gallery of graffiti
Rome, as everyone knows, has been a hub of art and culture throughout the ages. But fast forward from the acclaimed antiquity and the renowned Renaissance and you arrive at the MACRO’s Cross the Streets exhibition. This multimedia retrospective, made up of an impressive 200 works from street artists hailing from the Capital itself and around the world, sets to historicize the 40 year long phenomenon that we call street art.
From the Andy-Warhol-esque pop sculptures of Chicago born Ron English to the immense site-specific spray pieces by Roman artists Diamond and Lucamaleonte, the section of the exhibition entitled Street Art Stories offers a plethora of mediums through which to appreciate this modern artistic movement. It documents the development of street art as a culture, paying due homage to major influences and forerunners such as Keith Haring and Shepard Fairey.
What’s more, as well as bringing the street to the museum, the photography and film curated by Christian Omodeo as part of the Writing in Rome collection transports visitors back out to the street. It’s said that Rome is internationally unparalleled with regard to the volume and longevity of the graffiti on its public transport. Here, we see photographs and video footage taken to immortalise an artist’s work before it is inevitably engulfed by the ever-evolving, ever-growing, layer effect of graffiti.
Housed in the fittingly contemporary MACRO Museum, Cross the Streets is a unique insight into this urban art form that is not to be missed!
Macro Museum
Via Nizza, 138
Till 15 October 2017
Open Tues- Sun 10.30am – 7.30pm
Tickets: 10 euro (Reduced: 8 euro)
