From the center to the suburbs, in Rome you can find street art everywhere. The so-called “murales” form of contemporary art is one of the liveliest artistic expressions that the eternal city can boast: true works of the creativity that has made Rome one of the European destinations most preferred by street artists from around the world.
Street Art – Ostiense
From the American MoMo to the German Clemens Behr, to artworks by the Italians Hitnes and Sten&Lex, Rome offers quality street art itineraries of an international level, fit to compete with the beauty of classical art.
Born as a protest, today street art is a real expression of postmodern art, so much so that with its colors and variegated expression it has given new light and new life to entire working-class neighborhoods or suburban areas.
Our first destination is the Ostiense neighborhood, which has seen the birth of the “Ostiense District” project thanks to the participation of many world-renowned artists: here on the façades of buildings, fence walls and even on a barracks, we can appreciate very different works, all waiting to be discovered. Without a pre-established script, Via Ostiense, Via del Gazometro and Via del Porto Fluviale have been enlivened with colors and imagination. The artistic freedom shown in the murals transforms these places into hubs of attraction for Romans, curious tourists and new “writers.”
Street Art – Ostiense
Not far away, we can continue our itinerary, turning towards the Tor Marancia neighborhood just off the “Colombo,” (a typically Roman abbreviation for Via Cristoforo Colombo), the great artery that leads to the sea near Ostia. Here we reach the district that since 2015 has been known as the most colorful area of Rome thanks to the “Big City Life” project. Here twenty international artists have painted 22 monumental murals in bright and extravagant colors on the façades of the eleven buildings in Via di Tor Marancia 63, the “Lotto 1” of the social-housing blocks. Like a sudden detonation, street art transforms the social condition of a suburban district, turning it into a real, not-to-be missed open-air museum, participant at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale.
Street Art – Trullo
The greyness of the Trullo area is instead the meeting place of two artistic forms: poetry and street-art. Thanks to the “Poeti der Trullo” artistic movement and their verses in Roman dialect, forms and colors tell about the Rome that exists far from the historic center, where life is hard, where friends and family are the only points of reference in a jungle that does not always lead to meritorious or fortunate choices.
Moving about in the Rome of street art lets us discover a different city made up of contrasting cultures and experiences, often characterized by social difficulties and desire for redemption, as in the neighborhoods of Serpentara, San Basilio, Torpignattara, Tor Bella Monaca, Quadraro, Dragona, Trullo and Ottavia. Neighborhoods where you can find close to 330 works with unique colors and forms, capable of transmitting pain, distress, beauty but also hope and emancipation.
Street Art – Quadraro
Where anger and social hardship find an outlet and turn into pure street art.