January 2010: Andreco in Rome

Whales don't normally thrive in urban spaces, but don't tell that to Andreco. This Italian artist takes these giant sea creatures out of their natural habitats and plasters them up in concrete jungles across Europe. What started as an protest statement turned into a full-scale urban artistic assault. He writes:

"In 1999, I started sticking posters during an anti-war demonstration in Rome. There was war in Kosovo and the NATO forces decided to bomb Serbia. I was angry, so I started to draw anti-war posters and join all the anti-war demonstrations to stick my posters on the walls. That was a political action in some way.In 2001, I started an art project with other artists. We organized 'illicit exhibitions' in Rome's city centre by sticking our drawings mixed all together on walls. It was something really unusual for Rome at that time and we had a lot of fun!""Since the beginning I've done my personal art research on symbolism and rituals. It's always the same project but in evolution.My style is a product of what I see and my influences come from the environment in which I grew up: the underground cultural scene, the 'culture jamming' and the theories of 'situationism' and 'fluxus'." "I like sacred spots that can be transformed and all the places that let people think (and sometimes laugh)."
"My last project was one of the craziest things ever happened to me. Nothing actually happened, but it was a really unconventional situation. I was sticking a lot of paper snakes in a abandoned city in the Sahara desert; I renamed the place 'Snakes City'. It has been a deeply moving experience to develop artwork in Africa."
"Now I'm working on a book called Escape from the Gallery that will be a collection of three years of my exhibitions and actions in different European cities (Bologna, Barcellona, Milan, Leipzig, Termoli and Ancona). In all of the exhibitions, I created a flow of whales going out from an institutional place (like a gallery or museum) to the street. I hope the book will be ready for the summer time. I'm also working for some collective exhibitions. The next ones will be in Sicily, in Milan and in Spain.Big ups to you guys!"

Thanks, Andreco! For more whale photos, visit his Flickr.