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Industrial plants too can become open-air museums

05/10/2021

We live in a world where the search for beauty is in everything, from the private to the industrial, in which the study of the product focuses on the technical and aesthetic characteristics. In this sense, art has always guided men in the search for beauty and from 2000 onwards it has emerged from shows and canonical exhibition spaces to redevelop degraded public spaces.

For years, wandering around the Italian cities, you could see buildings with works of Street Art that color the urban design, drawing the attention of the passerby or the traveller. Underpasses, palaces and even silos become canvases on which to paint and tell stories.

As it happened on the eastern coast of Sicilia since 2015, where the Emergence Festival curates a street art project in Catania to redevelop some industrial areas. The silos of the city’s port have been transformed in an open-air exhibit in which art, industry and people coexist perfectly.

The authors of this work are many. The silos facing the sea show the works of the Portuguese Vhils, while 8 street artists were involved in the embellishment of those facing the city, including AEC, author of the silo depicting the escape of Ulysses from Polyphemus.

Another artist who participated in the project is Okuda, recognizable for his geometric and multicolor identity typical of Pop Surrealism. In Catania, Okuda paid homage to Vincenzo Bellini representing the muse of music.

Before starting to paint, in fact, the artist sought inspiration in the streets of Catania. He was struck by the statue of Villa Bellini, which represents the inspiring muse, so he photographed it and then represented it with his style on the silo. The colorful and visually striking work is entitled La bella di Bellini.

An aesthetic redevelopment of bare urban areas exclusively dedicated to industrial and production activities is certainly one of the objectives of these appreciable works and of the Catania street art project. The structural grandeur of the silos and their diffusion throughout the territory make it possible to find beauty in the union between community, art and the local industries.