SULLA PELLE DELLA CITTÀ. Street Art e Nuovo Muralismo a Palermo [foto di Giovanni Scotti]

Abstract

This volume traces and shows the contemporary image of Palermo by reading it through the works of Street Art and New Muralism that have covered it in recent years, from the urban ruins of the historic center to the difficult suburbs. Considered as visual signs and urban iconography made on the skin of the city, Urban Art is here analyzed as a phenomenon connected to popular culture and mass art that, as in the case of tattoos, extrinses the deeper character of the social and urban fabric. Diego Mantoan's text offers keys of historical and social analysis to understand the Sicilian capital and the evolution of its Urban Art, while Giovanni Scotti's photographs restore that direct and unfiltered encounter that only an unsuspecting passerby can have with the works inscribed on the city's surface. This parallel narrative, between words and images, leads the reader through the alleys of Old Palermo to investigate the character of the city through the resemantization of its historic center in relation to its peripheral areas. The volume is enriched by contributions and interviews with numerous protagonists of Palermo's Urban Art scene.