Photos by Lucio Patone / Sowire Photography Firenze
For Yan Blusseau and many of the faces of Finestra con vista, a movement that brought street art further into the limelight earlier this autumn, much of Florence’s beauty lies in its untapped potential. Blusseau, an art critic and a central figure of the urban art community, hums a refrain common among Florence’s contemporary creatives: the Tuscan capital’s underutilized location provides the foundation for an unparalleled ‘dialogue between past and present.’ With this in mind, Blusseau collaborated with local legend CLET to breathe new life into contemporary Florence, giving a pulse to an art form often viewed as unimportant in its impermanence.
Blusseau and CLET helped gather several dozen street artists—from the Florentine scene and beyond—for FCV, an all-night affair held this year on September 15. Well into the early hours, they transformed various walled-in windows of Florence into works of art. Urban art, Blusseau explained, often lacks both a literal and figurative ‘frame.’ Placing it within a walled-up window makes a statement about its worth: we frame what we find important and beautiful.
Since that first frenzied evening, Blusseau noted that many similarly styled works have popped up around town. In an effort to lend some semblance of permanence to these pieces, Blusseau has documented them on a Tumblr page, finestraconvista2014.tumblr.com. The page includes an interactive map of many ‘window works’ around town, concentrated mostly in the Oltrarno.
Though the artists involved have no specific events planned in the immediate future, Blusseau promises that they simply ‘don’t want to hurry… we want to leave ourselves enough time to do beautiful things.’
