In this recent work I have documented some episodes of street art in Naples which in recent years has been enriched with a lot of creations by Italian and foreign artists starting from the works of the French artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest, inspired above all by Caravaggio, and by Banksy who created Madonna with a gun, his only work in Italy.
The Italo-Dutch Jorit, one of the most interesting artists, painted large murals in the city and suburbs, inspired by various characters of Neapolitan culture, such as San Gennaro and Maradona. Political murals devoted to Fidel Castro and Giulio Regeni alternate with the works of artists such as Zilda, Tvboy, Roxy in the Box and Trallallà who covered the walls of the historic center with sirens which, like Parthenope, reminds the mythical origins of the city.
Wandering through the streets of Naples, thanks to street art, you meet popular icons such as Totò, Pino Daniele, Frida Kahlo, saints and madonnas who create a suggestive mix between the sacred and the profane. Naples becomes a city to look at and that looks at us, creating a dialogue with passers-by and expressing a culture of creativity and sharing, of resistance and freedom of vision and thought, as shown by the various interventions that enrich the original works with comments, poems and stickers that in the end create a collective collage.
About Giuliana Mariniello
Giuliana Mariniello was born in Piedmont and is of Istrian origin (Porec). She has taught English Literature at the University of Naples ‘L’Orientale’ and has published several books and essays on Shakespeare, the English culture of the Renaissance, the travel literature and the intercultural relations between the East and the West. She is interested in the theoretical aspects of photography and has been carrying on a personal artistic research for several years. She has taken part in various workshops with well-known Italian and foreign photographers, including M. Ackerman, Jane Evelyn Atwood, M. Botman, M. Cresci, F. Fontana, F. Jodice, D. Kirkland, G. le Querrec , S. Plachy, and A. Webb. She has exhibited in about 80 solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad (Paris, Arles, Budapest, Krakow, New York, Los Angeles, Tel Aviv) and has received various awards such as the Kodak Elite Prize and the Photofolio Prix at the Rencontres Internationales de la Photographie of Arles. Some themes of her work are the urban landscape, the representation of the ‘feminine’, Marilyn Monroe as an icon of contemporary society and the relationship between the sacred and the profane. She has curated several exhibitions (G. Berengo Gardin, F. Cito, F. Fontana, G. Leone, R. Cagnoni, H. Stein, C. García Rodero) and written about 80 articles, essays and presentations of photobooks. Her publications include Women X Women (2011), Marilyn Forever (Roma, 2013), the essays Sulla fotografia giapponese contemporanea (2013) and Araki Nobuyoshi. Eros and Thanatos (2019). She is a member of the FIAF, of the Italian Women Photographers’s Association and of the Editorial Board of the magazine FOTOIT. [Official Website]
