Walk the Line project in Genoa:

combining Graffiti-Writing traditions and Street Art innovations

Abstract

The Walk
the
Line Street Art project, organized in the north-western Italian city of Genoa, starting from summer 2016 has brought a new face to the skyway of the city, mostly hated by both residents and tourists but strictly necessary for the city’s fluid control of the traffic flow. Working on the surface of the pillars of the skyway, the artists called by the curators have been participating in a project that not only wants to embellish an infrastructural element of the city, but also wants to start a dialogue and create a link between different neighborhoods, creating a sort of open-space gallery. Furthermore, the different backgrounds of the artists who have taken part in the project raise a reflection about the dialogue between Graffiti-Writing traditions that still live today and Street Art innovations in the field of public art issues. The essay has the purpose of analyzing this kind of Street Art project, evaluating its artistic and social impact on the city, comparing it to the traditions developed by the protagonists of the Writing scene in Genoa and in northern Italy during the 1990s and the 2000s and introducing various questions about terminology.