5 Degrees Under
Introduzione al catalogo della mostra “5 Degrees Under”

Street art today is 5 degrees under the institutionalisation of increasingly neutral settings and 5 degrees over a past of unlawfulness and aerosols. Following the success of exhibitions such as “Street Art Sweet Art” at the Pavilion of Contemporary Art in Milan and “Street Art” at the Tate Gallery in London, street art finally seems to have gained entry to the Olympus of universally accepted Art. Yet street art continues its pioneering progress outside institutional channels such as galleries and museums, while making itself heard in the streets and vibrating on the walls of cities all over the world. From  Banksy in London and JR in Paris to Tv Boy in Barcelona and The London Police’s collective in London. Acclaimed and attacked like a super hero of Marvel cartoons, street art is probably one of the modern art forms that the public is involved in and relates to most,  striking and exciting as few other currents have succeeded in doing in the past century.  Because street art hits the onlooker right between the eyes with all the weapons it has available – from poetry and illustration to photography and sculpture. What matters is the message and the ability to propagate it to as wide an audience as possible, since everyone has the right to enjoy art and its many declinations. For this exhibition we have selected five of the leading exponents of Italian street art to give an overall view of the raft of styles and expressions characterising this art form. From poems by Ivan, who for five years has used the world’s streets as blank pages for his verses, to the mystical figures and neo-renaissance style of Gionata Gesi Ozmo, a key player in the spring of contemporary art in Italy. From the illustrative pop style of Tv  Boy, who grew up in the streets of Milan and achieved artistic maturity in the galleries of Copenhagen, Barcelona and Amsterdam, to the graphics of Microbo and Bo130, who are recognized globally as the precursors of Italian street art. A melting-show that conveys a message to a vast audience, fascinating and amazing them with its strong communicative mark born of situational influences and the detournement of daily life as well as the pop awareness typical of street art. A site-specific exhibition staged in a location that has been converted for the occasion into both container and contents. All the artists have interpreted the spaces allocated to them as a wall, going beyond the normal surface of artistic fruition and re-inventing new worlds of art and communication in the streets and the galleries.