Hope and Resurrection, A Street Art Reportage
Jessica Stewart
Hobo Art Club
via Ascoli Piceno 3 (Rome, Italy)
September 11 - 25, 2009.
Opening September 11 at 8 pm

What is the power of an image?  How does it effect/move/transform a place or a person?  And what happens when people of different backgrounds come together to push an image out into the world? 

The photography project Hope and Resurrection was brought about through the collaboration of American photographer and art historian Jessica Stewart and Roman street artists Mr. Klevra and Omino71.  A singular image of the Madonna and Child, something so icon yet often overlooked in our modern times carries forward the sentence “Only After Disaster Can We Resurrect.”  Plastered across Rome as stickers and posters, whether placed on electrical boxes and decaying walls or hung from clotheslines, this undeniable image was diffused through the city.  How would people react?  Would they break from their daily urban routine to stop, slow down, and observe the power of this image?  Would people be able to recognize the artistry of the pieces instead of dismissing them as vandalism? How would each artist bring their style to this collaborative effort?  By juxtaposing their collaborative pieces with their own individual works, Omino71 and Mr. Klevra allow the pubic to judge this for themselves. 

The images exhibited have developed over the span over several months.  First capturing the small-scale stickers that dotted Rome, with the iconic image of a child reaching out to touch the artwork as a focal point, and then moving toward an installation of posters on the public clotheslines of the Roman neighborhood Garbatella.  Jessica shot the majority of the photography in a one-day whirlwind of activity across the city the evening after a pasting session by Mr. Klevra and Omino71. She set out to tell the story not only of each individual location, with its specific characteristics and contexts, but to also capture details which force the viewer to “observe” the pieces in a specific way, thus recalling the details one finds in art historical texts.  The idea being to take the imagery put into the world by these artists and not simply report it, but also transform it into a powerful message of hope as seen through the eyes of the photographer.

Per Italiano vedi Exibart