Humble Pie and Sitting Corrected

It's not that I'm sorry. I'm not.
But its coming up to six years that I've been writing this blog, and as a result, there's room to revise some ideas from time to time.
Not for example on selfie sticks, or on anything Vatican-y (except Ratzinger and Padre Georg: I loved them: such a cute couple!).
But a while back I posted about how Taschen and Gisele Bundchen had teamed up for a Gisele coffee table book.
A very expensive, don't head over to the bookshop if you're having trouble with the rent or your mortgage payment kind of book. I mean, I didn't say it was going to be a flop or anything, but I guess I was questioning the whole Why? of it all as Tim Gunn would say.
Well, we needn't worry for GB. Girl's gonna have no problems paying her rent and in selling out her ludicrously overpriced book she has proven that there are a lot of people with some warped priorities. Like your coffee table book could feed a village kind of shit, but what would I know?
But really, was there really any doubt its run was going to sell out?
Supermodels are recession proof!
Someone needs to bottle their essences and study that stuff at the Harvard Business School to better prepare us for when there are no arms sellers left in the world to keep the economy  spinning.
(I know that sounds a little Silence of the Lambs but I don't mean it in that way).

---

Anyway, while I'm at it...
Almost six years ago I moved to Rome. And I was immediately struck by how street art was still in its infant stages even though graffiti per se has existed in Rome since, well, Roman times. Back then when I posted about the burgeoning scene I thought it was going to take a while for Rome to get to a point where its edginess as a city was matched by what you see on its walls.
Well, lo and behold. I sit corrected. When the Huffington Post calls  you out for being the emerging European capital of street art, you can start to believe it.
It's not really mentioned in the article, but there are a few reasons why certain parts of Rome are becoming open air galleries. On the one hand, galleries like the Wunderkammern in Tor Pignatara and the colletive Laszlo Biro - (hi boys) - have had a huge hand in this. They paved the way for much of East Rome's street art/urban renewal by encouraging large scale projects in conjunction with residents and the local municipal offices. Or by simply producing great, very graphic friendly work (as in the case of the LB crew).
In addition, a lot of Roman suburbs are the subject of wear and tear. Asking a tenants committee if an artist can have an external wall in exchange for its repair and adornment is a no brainer in cash strapped Rome.
Keep an eye out though for other emerging hot spots in Italy. Palermo and Genova are the cities to watch for if you ask me. They've got some great up and coming scenes and artists that rival what's happening in Rome and Milan.
In the meantime, you can find Laszlo Biro here and the Wunderkammern here.

---