Blu is the pseudonym of an Italian artist who conceals his real identity. He was born in
Senigallia
Senigallia (or Sinigaglia in Old Italian, Romagnol: ''S’nigaja'') is a ''comune'' and port town on Italy's Adriatic coast. It is situated in the province of Ancona in the Marche region and lies approximately 30 kilometers north-west of the pro ...
. He lives in
Bologna
Bologna (, , ; egl, label=Emilian language, Emilian, Bulåggna ; lat, Bononia) is the capital and largest city of the Emilia-Romagna region in Northern Italy. It is the seventh most populous city in Italy with about 400,000 inhabitants and 1 ...
and has been active in
street art since 1999.
Places
Central and South America
His nomadic spirit reached its peak in 2005. From the end of that year Blu spent most of his time jumping around in self-guided travels, linking his itineraries to the festivals to which he was invited. At that time, he collaborated with
Ericailcane and several artists from
Costa Rica,
Nicaragua
Nicaragua (; ), officially the Republic of Nicaragua (), is the largest country in Central America, bordered by Honduras to the north, the Caribbean to the east, Costa Rica to the south, and the Pacific Ocean to the west. Managua is the countr ...
,
Guatemala, and
Honduras in a festival in
Managua
)
, settlement_type = Capital city
, motto =
, image_map =
, mapsize =
, map_caption =
, pushpin_map = Nicar ...
called "Murales de Octubre." On that occasion he painted a wall, significant in the history of South American
mural
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Word mural in art
The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...
s, on the Avenida Bolivar where, in 1979,
Victor Canifrù celebrated the Sandinista revolution. With this he achieved one of his most imposing murals which was immediately dubbed Hombre Banano (Banana Man) by the locals, referring to the protest of the workers on banana plantations.
The following year, from October 2006 to December 2006, he returned to Central and South America for a long circuit of murals that included
Mexico City
Mexico City ( es, link=no, Ciudad de México, ; abbr.: CDMX; Nahuatl: ''Altepetl Mexico'') is the capital city, capital and primate city, largest city of Mexico, and the List of North American cities by population, most populous city in North Amer ...
,
Guatemala City
Guatemala City ( es, Ciudad de Guatemala), known locally as Guatemala or Guate, is the capital and largest city of Guatemala, and the most populous urban area in Central America. The city is located in the south-central part of the country, ne ...
, Managua,
San José (Costa Rica), and finally,
Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires ( or ; ), officially the Autonomous City of Buenos Aires ( es, link=no, Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires), is the capital and primate city of Argentina. The city is located on the western shore of the Río de la Plata, on South ...
(Argentina). He was followed during the trip by filmmaker
Lorenzo Fonda, who documented the experience and turned it into the documentary film ''Megunica'', for which Blu created a series of animated segments using digital software. The film also includes the first documented painted stop-motion animation by Blu.
[Blu's First Stop-Motion Street Art Experiments in 'Megunica'](_blank)
/ref> A year later he was again in South America, in São Paulo
São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for ' Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the Ga ...
, Brazil, participating in the festival "A Conquista do Espaço" (Conquering Space). On that occasion he came up with a new interpretation of the " Christ of Corcovado" of Rio de Janeiro
Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a ...
. In Blu's version Christ
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religious ...
is literally submerged by tons of guns and rifles.
From the Fall of 2007 to the Spring of 2008, he lived in Buenos Aires, devoting all his efforts to the creation of a video called ''Muto''[Blu, Muto, 2008, via Youtube](_blank)
(Silent). In addition to receiving many international awards, such as the Grand Prix 2009 from the Festival of Clermont-Ferrand
Clermont-Ferrand (, ; ; oc, label=Auvergnat, Clarmont-Ferrand or Clharmou ; la, Augustonemetum) is a city and commune of France, in the Auvergne-Rhône-Alpes region, with a population of 146,734 (2018). Its metropolitan area (''aire d'attract ...
,[Clermont-Ferrand Film Festival Website](_blank)
/ref> "Muto" has been seen by 12 million-plus viewers on YouTube. It is also available in high definition on Blu's website under the Creative Commons license. This video is composed of hundreds of paintings on walls, made throughout many streets of Buenos Aires and, frame by frame, creates more than seven minutes of an animated mural.
In 2009 Blu started his umpteenth tour around South America visiting Bogotá for the festival "Memoria Canalla", then to Montevideo, Uruguay
Uruguay (; ), officially the Oriental Republic of Uruguay ( es, República Oriental del Uruguay), is a country in South America. It shares borders with Argentina to its west and southwest and Brazil to its north and northeast; while bordering ...
, back to Buenos Aires and, for the first time, to Lima
Lima ( ; ), originally founded as Ciudad de Los Reyes (City of The Kings) is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín Rivers, in the desert zone of the central coastal part of ...
, Peru
, image_flag = Flag of Peru.svg
, image_coat = Escudo nacional del Perú.svg
, other_symbol = Great Seal of the State
, other_symbol_type = National seal
, national_motto = "Firm and Happy f ...
, where he painted the entire façade of an historical building in the central Avenida Arenales. In this huge mural Blu seems to reinterpret the history of South America, a continent that has been violated by both ancient and modern conquistadores
Conquistadors (, ) or conquistadores (, ; meaning 'conquerors') were the explorer-soldiers of the Spanish and Portuguese Empires of the 15th and 16th centuries. During the Age of Discovery, conquistadors sailed beyond Europe to the Americas, ...
.
In 2013 he participated in the Bienal de Arte Urbano (BAU) in Cochabamba, Bolivia.
North America
In 2008 Blu accepted an invitation from the Deitch Gallery in New York to paint the exterior of their Long Island location.
After being invited by the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA) is a contemporary art museum with two locations in greater Los Angeles, California. The main branch is located on Grand Avenue in Downtown Los Angeles, near the Walt Disney Concert Hall. MOCA's ...
to paint an exterior wall of the museum for its "Art in the Street" exhibition, its director Jeffrey Deitch ordered the resulting mural to be whitewashed the day after it was finished, probably due to its political content. The mural represented two rows of coffins each draped with a one-dollar bill in place of the American flag.
West Bank
In 2007, Santa's Ghetto, a London-based art collective which organizes annual happenings of painting performances and print trade fairs, invited Blu to a festival that took place in the West Bank
The West Bank ( ar, الضفة الغربية, translit=aḍ-Ḍiffah al-Ġarbiyyah; he, הגדה המערבית, translit=HaGadah HaMaʽaravit, also referred to by some Israelis as ) is a landlocked territory near the coast of the Mediter ...
. Blu was part of a group of artists, including Banksy
Banksy is a pseudonymous England-based street artist, political activist and film director whose real name and identity remain unconfirmed and the subject of speculation. Active since the 1990s, his satirical street art and subversive epigram ...
, Mark Jenkins, Ron English, Swoon, and Faile who painted on the wall around Bethlehem
Bethlehem (; ar, بيت لحم ; he, בֵּית לֶחֶם '' '') is a city in the central West Bank, Palestine, about south of Jerusalem. Its population is approximately 25,000,Amara, 1999p. 18.Brynen, 2000p. 202. and it is the capital o ...
that separates the West Bank from Israel
Israel (; he, יִשְׂרָאֵל, ; ar, إِسْرَائِيل, ), officially the State of Israel ( he, מְדִינַת יִשְׂרָאֵל, label=none, translit=Medīnat Yīsrāʾēl; ), is a country in Western Asia. It is situated ...
.[Sheera Claire Frenkel,]
Let us spray: Banksy hits Bethlehem
, ''The Times'', December 3, 2007. On a watchtower border Blu painted a figure of a person trying to tear down the walls with his finger.
Europe
Austria
In 2010 Blu was invited to Vienna
en, Viennese
, iso_code = AT-9
, registration_plate = W
, postal_code_type = Postal code
, postal_code =
, timezone = CET
, utc_offset = +1
, timezone_DST ...
to paint a mural at the Danube
The Danube ( ; ) is a river that was once a long-standing frontier of the Roman Empire and today connects 10 European countries, running through their territories or being a border. Originating in Germany, the Danube flows southeast for , p ...
River harbour near Albern in the city district of Simmering
Simmering is a food preparation technique by which foods are cooked in hot liquids kept just below the boiling point of water (lower than ) and above poaching temperature (higher than ). To create a steady simmer, a liquid is brought to a boil, ...
.
First suggested in 1923 as one possibility for the expansion of Vienna's harbour facilities, Albern was selected for realisation by the German Reich Ministry of Transport
The Reich Ministry of Transport (german: Reichsverkehrsministerium or ''RVM'') was a cabinet-level agency of the German government from 1919 until 1945, operating during the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany. Formed from the Prussian Ministry of Pub ...
''(Reichsverkehrsministerium)'' in 1939, a year after the "Anschluss
The (, or , ), also known as the (, en, Annexation of Austria), was the annexation of the Federal State of Austria into the German Reich on 13 March 1938.
The idea of an (a united Austria and Germany that would form a " Greater Germany ...
" of Austria
Austria, , bar, Östareich officially the Republic of Austria, is a country in the southern part of Central Europe, lying in the Eastern Alps. It is a federation of nine states, one of which is the capital, Vienna, the most populous ...
to Nazi Germany
Nazi Germany (lit. "National Socialist State"), ' (lit. "Nazi State") for short; also ' (lit. "National Socialist Germany") (officially known as the German Reich from 1933 until 1943, and the Greater German Reich from 1943 to 1945) was ...
. The project was to serve as a logistic node of a future geo- and biopolitical
Biopolitics refers to the political relations between the administration or regulation of the life of species and a locality's populations, where politics and law evaluate life based on perceived constants and traits. French philosopher Michel Fo ...
order, designated for the transshipment of grain from the annexed or economically colonized regions of eastern
Eastern may refer to:
Transportation
*China Eastern Airlines, a current Chinese airline based in Shanghai
*Eastern Air, former name of Zambia Skyways
*Eastern Air Lines, a defunct American airline that operated from 1926 to 1991
*Eastern Air Li ...
and south-eastern Europe
Southeast Europe or Southeastern Europe (SEE) is a geographical subregion of Europe, consisting primarily of the Balkans. Sovereign states and territories that are included in the region are Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia (al ...
to the heartlands of the German Reich. For the construction of the harbour basin and its five granaries between 1939 and 1942 the Nazi regime employed forced labour. Realized on one of the granaries, Blu's mural
A mural is any piece of graphic artwork that is painted or applied directly to a wall, ceiling or other permanent substrate. Mural techniques include fresco, mosaic, graffiti and marouflage.
Word mural in art
The word ''mural'' is a Spani ...
called upon the overdue historical and social commemoration of the place's charged history and the unknown fates of the forced labourers who built it. The commissioned piece was destroyed in autumn 2013 in the course of renovation works.[Roman Tschiedl: ''BLU - Untitled/it is obvious'', in: Maria Taig, Barbara Horvath (Hg.): ''Kör vie 07-10: Public Art in Vienna, 2007-2010'', Verlag für moderne Kunst, Nuremberg 2014, p 206; see als]
Untitled/it is obvious
koer.or.at, 2010[Ortrun Veichtlbauer: ]
Braune Donau. Transportweg nationalsozialistischer Biopolitik
', in: Christian Reder, Erich Klein (Hg.): ''Graue Donau – Schwarzes Meer'', Springer, Vienna/New York, 2008, p 240 f
England
In 2007, Blu went to London for the first time where he made many pieces around Camden Town and Willow Street, and at the former headquarters of art-gallery website Pictures on Walls. That same summer he took part in a two-man exhibit with Ericailcane at the Lazarides Gallery. The following year, the Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
[Tate Gallery, Street Art Exhibition's Website](_blank)
presented an exhibition on the phenomenon of street art and invited Blu,[Francesca Gavin,]
Street art is now mainstream
''The Guardian'', April 8, 2008. along with JR, Faile, Sixeart, and Os Gêmeos
OSGEMEOS (also known as Os Gemeos or Os Gêmeos, Portuguese for ''The Twins'') are identical twin street artists Otavio Pandolfo and Gustavo Pandolfo (born 1974). They started painting graffiti in 1987 and their work appears on streets and in gall ...
e Nunca
Francisco Rodrigues da Silva also known as "Nunca" is a Brazilian artist who uses a graffiti technique to create images that confront modern urban Brazil with its native past. His name Nunca ("Never" in Portuguese) is an affirmation of his determ ...
, to paint its entire main façade.[Street art to adorn Tate's walls]
, BBC, April 2, 2008
Germany
Blu worked in Germany on many occasions between 2006 and 2009, mostly in Berlin, and always around Cuvrystraße in a multi-ethnic neighborhood called Kreuzberg
Kreuzberg () is a district of Berlin, Germany. It is part of the Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg borough located south of Mitte. During the Cold War era, it was one of the poorest areas of West Berlin, but since German reunification in 1990 it ha ...
. Thanks to his participation in several of the festivals "Backjump" and "Planetprozess," he had the opportunity to create some of his works, one of which was painted in combination with gigantic photos by the French artist JR.
In 2006, during one of these trips, Blu made his first digital animation from images painted directly on a wall, a technique that would be a recurrent theme of many of his future videos such as "Muto."
In consultation with Blu the two murals at Cuvrystraße were covered with black paint in 2014 by a group of people as a sign of discontent with the city's urban development policies in the area.
Italy
Italy, above any other country, can boast of having the majority of Blu's graffiti, both illegal and legal. Among the public projects worth noting are the façade of PAC (the Contemporary Art Pavilion) in Milan
Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...
, finished in 2008; the murals in that city's Bicocca and Lambrate train stations, done in 2008 and in 2009; three editions of "Spina Festival" in Comacchio Comacchio (; egl, label= Comacchiese, Cmâc' ) is a town and ''comune'' of Emilia Romagna, Italy, in the province of Ferrara, from the provincial capital Ferrara. It was founded about two thousand years ago; across its history it was first gover ...
(2005, 2006 and 2007); two editions of "Fame Festival a Grottaglie
Grottaglie (; scn, label=Salentino, li Vurtàgghie; la, Criptalium) is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Taranto, Apulia, in southern Italy.
Geography
Grottaglie is located in the Salento peninsula, dividing the Adriatic sea from Ionian ...
" (2008 and 2009). In this last one, Blu completed a video-animation with the New York-based artist, David Ellis. Blu has also taken part in many editions of the festival "Icone" in Modena and in Ancona
Ancona (, also , ) is a city and a seaport in the Marche region in central Italy, with a population of around 101,997 . Ancona is the capital of the province of Ancona and of the region. The city is located northeast of Rome, on the Adriatic ...
's "Festival Pop Up" in 2008 where he painted along with Ericailcane a gigantic silos next to the harbor waterfront. Other Italian cities where Blu has left his mark are varied, among which are Prato, Florence
Florence ( ; it, Firenze ) is a city in Central Italy and the capital city of the Tuscany Regions of Italy, region. It is the most populated city in Tuscany, with 383,083 inhabitants in 2016, and over 1,520,000 in its metropolitan area.Bilan ...
, Grosseto
Grosseto () is a city and ''comune'' in the central Italian region of Tuscany, the capital of the Province of Grosseto. The city lies from the Tyrrhenian Sea, in the Maremma, at the centre of an alluvial plain on the Ombrone river.
It is the ...
, Turin
Turin ( , Piedmontese: ; it, Torino ) is a city and an important business and cultural centre in Northern Italy. It is the capital city of Piedmont and of the Metropolitan City of Turin, and was the first Italian capital from 1861 to 1865. The ...
, Ancona, Rovereto
Rovereto (; "wood of sessile oaks"; locally: ''Roveredo'') is a city and ''comune'' in Trentino in northern Italy, located in the Vallagarina valley of the Adige River.
History
Rovereto was an ancient fortress town standing at the frontier ...
, Verona
Verona ( , ; vec, Verona or ) is a city on the Adige River in Veneto, Italy, with 258,031 inhabitants. It is one of the seven provincial capitals of the region. It is the largest city municipality in the region and the second largest in nor ...
and Pesaro.
In Bologna there were most of his first works because of his studies in the city's University. In 2016 he deleted all murals painted in Bologna due to the decision taken by the municipality who made an exhibition trying to profit from Blu's graffiti without his permission.
Blu has also painted in several "Centri Sociali
Self-managed social centres in Italy exist in many cities. They are part of different left-wing political networks including anarchist, communist, socialist, and autonomist. The centres (Italian: centri sociali) tend to be squatted and provid ...
", places that are between squats and self-managed cultural centers. In Bologna his work is visible at XM24, TPO, Livello 57, Crash; in Rome at Forte Prenestino
CSOA Forte Prenestino is a large self-managed social centre based in a squatted fort in Centocelle, Rome. It was occupied on May Day 1986. Forte Prenestino is an "important node of production of
cultural and political events" and hosts many grou ...
and Collatino; in Milan at Cox 18 and Leoncavallo and in Pisa at Cantiere San Bernardo.
Spain
Blu has frequently visited Spain. At the festival "Segundo Asalto" in Zaragoza
Zaragoza, also known in English as Saragossa,''Encyclopædia Britannica'"Zaragoza (conventional Saragossa)" is the capital city of the Zaragoza Province and of the autonomous community of Aragon, Spain. It lies by the Ebro river and its tributari ...
, he, along with the artists San, Eltono, Nuria, and Nano, painted a mural of a colossal minotaur picking up an astonished man. Blu's murals can also be found in Valencia
Valencia ( va, València) is the capital of the autonomous community of Valencia and the third-most populated municipality in Spain, with 791,413 inhabitants. It is also the capital of the province of the same name. The wider urban area al ...
, Linares, Madrid
Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...
and Barcelona
Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...
. In Barcelona's Barrio Carmelo neighborhood, Blu took part in the 2008 edition of the festival "The Influencers
The Influencers is a festival that mixes art, guerrilla communication and radical entertainment. It is curated by Bani Brusadin, Eva & Franco Mattes. In 2012, one of the guests was the Russian art collective Voina
Voina ( rus, Война, p=v ...
". With the global economic crisis looming, Blu painted a threatening shark whose skin is completely covered in euro bills.
Censored in US
* He was invited in Los Angeles
Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...
for the exhibition "Art in the Streets ''Art in the Streets'' was an exhibition held at the Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles from April 17 to August 8, 2011. Curated by its then-director Jeffrey Deitch and associate curators Aaron Rose and Roger Gastman, it surveyed the developme ...
" but his work on the side of the Geffen Contemporary Wing of MOCA was censored.
Bibliography
* Backjumps (2007). ''The Live Issue #3: Urban Communication and Aesthetics'', William Stratmann, ISBN 978-3-937946-27-6
* Dietrich, Lucas (2009). ''60: Innovators Shaping Our Creative Future'', Thames & Hudson.
* Hundertmark, Christian (2006). ''The Art of Rebellion 2: World of Urban Art Activism (No. 2)
* Iosifidis, Kiriakos (2009). ''Mural Art, Volume 2: Murals on Huge Public Surfaces Around the World from Graffiti to Trompe L'Oeil'', Gingko Press.
* Lazarides, Steve (2009). ''Outsiders: Art by People''
* Lewisohn, Cedar, editor (2008). ''Street Art: The Graffiti Revolution'', HNA Books.
* Manco, Tristan (2007). ''Street Sketchbook: Inside the Journals of International Street and Graffiti Artists'', Chronicle Books.
* Tschiedl, Roman (2014). ''BLU - Untitled/it is obvious'', In: Taig, Maria d. ''Kör vie 07-10: Public art Vienna 2007 - 2010'', Verlag für moderne Kunst
Editions
* Blu (2018). ''Minima muralia'', Special edition, Zooo Print and Press
* Blu (2018). ''Minima muralia'', Zooo Print and Press
* Blu (2008). ''Blu 2004-2007'', Studio Cromie
* Blu (2006). ''Nulla'', Zooo Print and Press.
* Blu (2005). ''25 disegni (with Ericailcane)'', Zooo Print and Press.
References
External links
buenosairesstreetart.com: Blu
Blu
{{DEFAULTSORT:Blu
Italian graffiti artists
Living people
People from Senigallia
Anonymous artists
Pseudonymous artists
Year of birth missing (living people)