Around and About: Finding Art and Vindictive Penguins

As promised here are some photos of some graffiti I've found on my trip so far. Some of it I liked because of the unique characters that looked like something I would draw, or just for the fact that they seemed to make a statement about European culture.

Close to the sign with an arrow through a one euro coin, we came across this more recognizable symbol of Cupid's arrow. Hmm... a statement about love and money perhaps? I'm going to be on the look out and see if there are more signs like this.

Like I said, I always enjoy stumbling across this artist's work. This one is close to the other man carrying the sign, except notice the small wings attached to his back. I wonder if another artist came in and added them or if it's a different design by the same artist? If it was a joint collaboration it wouldn't be too different from some of the Renaissance artists in the bigger, more acclaimed galleries such as the Uffizi and Galleria Accademia. 

A cool character.

On our walk, we came across Dante's Alley which contained his church and his house that he stayed in when he lived in Florence. One of the best things about walking around this city is the opportunity that walking blindly provides. You find cool excursions like this one that you never knew about, which make it much better than setting out with a map and finding it with a plan in mind.

Dante's house

Maybe the Mafia at one point claimed Dante's house as their rendezvous point?

I liked this one because it seemed at one point to be a full panel with women (that look a lot like Picasso's 'Demoiselles') but it is fading either from someone scrubbing it off or just from it being painted on the wall for so long. It reminded me that the walls of Florence, while they provide a white canvas for many artists, can be reused and reused for centuries since the art will disappear and be painted over for thousands of years to come. Florence really is an artist's dream place. 

We stumbled into a book store where I found a very interesting, very enticing comic book called "La Stanza" (The Room) by Lorenzo Mattotti. Unlike most graphic novels this one has no words and is the same setting (a bedroom) with two lovers lying on their bed in various positions, some with clothes, some with not, some sleeping, some drinking coffee and talking- all done in various shades of pencil. This immediately went on my Amazon wishlist once I got back home.

Another great comic book we found was called "La Lunga Marcia Dei Pinguini Bastardi" (The Long March of the Bastard Penguins). If you've ever looked at the Suicidal Bunnies comic books, this one is done in the same manner- wordless, simple one page comics that often depict something terrible (yet incredibly funny) being done by a cute furry animal- in this case, penguins. There were many that caught our eyes as we flipped through the book...

The Duomo in the daytime.

This one pretty much explains itself, but I thought it was pretty cool that some graffiti artists are staying up to date with news and politics and putting their voices out on the walls of the streets. This one is very close to our apartment, so I see it almost every day and sure enough, it makes me think about the Wikileaks situation. If art is meant to make provoke people to think about social issues, then I'd say this artist did a pretty good job.

There are buggies that take people all around the city. This horse was taking a break and chowing down on some oats in the middle of the piazza dell Duomo.

Another cool profile face.

Peace

 I will have more graffiti to show soon as there is an abundance here and in other towns. I will probably post one of all the paintings I have seen in the galleries (Of course, they don't have pictures so they'll probably just be from the Internet) but it will give you an idea of what I'm seeing and what I'm thinking. Until then, chi vediamo dopo (See you later).