Walking around the city, we came across a number of entrances of houses that appeared to be rather run down. Curious as we were, we looked into these alleys and spotted some exciting little paintings on the predominantely orange sandstone like walls. We liked them so much that we took pictures of the drawings and contiuned with our hike through the city. However, in the next alley, we spotted similar drawings and in the one after also. What was even more peculiar is that we spotted these drawings also in other parts of Florence and also in Pisa.
Back at home and still intrigued by all of this, I tried to find out a little bit more about these pieces of art. Apparently, they stem from a young artist, who was frustrated by the lack of opportunities for young artists in Florence. The following text is an excerpt from the website “A guide to street artists in Florence”:
Exit/Enter
It would be hard to spend a few days in Florence without spotting the work of ‘Exit/Enter’ whose funny little men in simple scenes like the one below make any decrepit wall in Florence look good. The young artist behind this work has been interviewed by Toc Toc Firenze and explains that ‘art and drawing is a part of him’ along with long walks around the city – the concept of exit and enter because ‘life is a continuous change and an endless succession of situations, depending on your point of view, can be experienced as an exit or an entrance to new possibilities’. It was almost accidental that the work made it to the streets. Frustrated by the lack of opportunities for young artists in Florence, he took to making his own ‘open air gallery’.
He did so by painting his work on the streets in Florence in order to make them ponder grandiose things like ‘the meaning of life’ with these interesting little men whose ladders go up until infinity or that fly away with a few balloons. Almost childlike but done so on purpose, the simpleness of them are genuine and pure – accessible to anyone and everyone.
