Madrid – #grafieurbane, reportage artist Marina Misiti at the Italian Institute of Culture

The Italian Institute of Culture (IIC) in Madrid will host a world preview of “#grafieurbane” by reportage artist Marina Misiti at 8 p.m. on 14 June, as part of the activities on the sidelines of the exhibition “Gabriele Basilico. Architecture and Cities” and the IIC’s artist residency project “The Art to Come”. The artist will offer the visitors to the Italian Institute her new artistic format:  “Mappe Urbane Personali/MUP”, an illustrated reportage project started in New York in 2005 and expanded over the years to other urban settings (London, Tokyo, Rome, etc.). “The illustrations aim to redesign a place, reviewing and reviving it through a different look. For me, portraying a city means relating to the place and its inhabitants emotionally, in some way merging oneself with what one sees,” said Marina Misiti. Thus, her portrayal of cityscapes around the world is “emotional”, based on innovative textures, artistically perceived and portrayed; a series of outlines, contours, forms and signs creatively highlighted that contribute to forming a “personal urban vision”. These urban sketches also rediscover the interweaving of signs around the world, to be interpreted. Portraying a city thus gives privileged understanding (etymologically: take possession of, embrace) of this interwoven texture. Here urban traits are not only captions describing images but images in and of themselves, expressed in different ways but deserving equal respect. As in a calligramme, in which one must differentiate between figures and writing, in this case too signs and images intertwine to form a personal alternative geography, an aesthetic and emotional cartography of cities.