Stencils. In black and white, just a hint of bright red – when and if needed – among the lines that draw people, small scenes on the walls of the city. The messenger is QUIROthe message is all in the contradictions of the society we live in and the time we go through. Perhaps, however, these creative acts also manage to say something about the place where the anonymous artist chose to place them. So, look at Avellino.
A punk who rings the rosary, a Don-Trapper with his priest’s habit and a chain weighted by the dollar sign around his neck, the young writer holding his spray can while being scolded by an agent for having defaced the wall. The flag of peace displayed and a gun in his pocket, a tender love that offers flowers in exchange for hearts on social media.
This is what we found around, but there could be so much more, we would be happy: put paint everywhere .
- Photo by Giovanni Centrella
They are not immediately visible, they are on the corner of a building, low down near a sidewalk, on the marble of any wall among other tags. Yet they strike, they get where they need to get to and they give us back a little hope: that all is not lost, for starters. And that every point of view can still be reversed, in particular in the current capital of Irpiniawhere everything seems flat.
It might, due to its style and content, be somewhat reminiscent of Banksy: QUIRO seems to shake up the order of things, plays with apparently untouchable realities, enjoys distorting icons, tries to mock the concept of authority. In his own way he distorts meanings, dragging with it the idea that no one is really capable of telling you what you have to do, let alone stating what the city should look like.
- Photo by Giovanni Centrella
More or less like the attempt to cage street art in an exhibition at the former Cinema Eliseo: not good, ever. And now we all know it.
After all the city is dotted with murals, from very simple graffiti to more structured works, in parks or on buildings, are commissioned, created on private buildings, instinctive or desired by the municipal administration. And there is one neighborhood in particular that has always been affected by this form of urban creativity, it is San Tommaso – with its wall that surrounds the neighborhood – where the works of all generations from Avellino alternate: iconic, recognisable, identifying.
Must leave spaceto QUIRO – our faceless artist – and also to quiratedif a new street artist ever emerges. Art is always knowledgenot just expression.
Street art, then, is practiced without having to measure or compare oneself, without having to explain an instinct, each with their own objective, outside the stringent rules, without academy, without posters. Intellectually honest and free, those who live in the places must perceive it, feel it, appropriate it. It usually stays outside museums for this very reason, to interact, to remain public, democratic, to initiate a form of social and cultural change.
He may not be the hero we deserve, but he is QUIRO we need Now. Our glimmer of light.
Cover photo, Giovanni Centrella
