Sten Lex: "no to institution-supported street art, it's propaganda." And they exhibit at Jaguar's

If the street art movement is taking off thanks also to the support of institutions (in Rome, for example, the Lazio Region has decided to incentivize murals, and there are also special calls for proposals, but the situation is similar in many cities Italy), internationally renowned Italian artist couple Sten Lex says no to the mixing of institutions and culture, and decides to exhibit their works inside the IWR Jaguar Land Rover dealership on Via Bissolati, just a few steps from Via Veneto and the streets of the “Dolce Vita.”

Invited by Banksy to The Cans Festival along with thirty-nine other street artists from around the world, Sten Lex are pioneers of the Italian street art movement: they were among the first in Italy to engage in stencil graffiti, and they introduced the stencil poster technique to our country after being arrested in 2005. Works such as Pope Sleeping in Piazza Magione in Palermo, Miss Nor Tronic in Stavanger, Norway, or the 700-square-meter face of a boy in Køge, Denmark, are some of the largest stencils ever made in the world. Exhibited in some of the most prestigious museums, Sten Lex have also helped enrich the art of Rome by creating the exterior facade of the Macro Museum and the Tapestry at the Foro Italico.

Last June 17, an event was held at the showroom as part of which, to the notes of Laura Zaottini’s electronic violin and Marco Sforna’s DJ set, a number of works by Sten Lex, who were present incognito at the exhibition, set up by Cristiana Meloni of LABO Architects & Inventors in collaboration with DOUBLE studio, were displayed. The sale of the works will benefit the Rewriters cultural movement, of which the two artists are supporters, and which aims to rewrite the subject matter of today from contemporary culture, of which street art is an important expression.

The exhibition also signaled a strong stance by the two artists. “In the last 10 years, in Rome and Lazio, works are commissioned by institutions or big brands that have imposed guidelines on the social issues to be dealt with,” they said on the occasion. “Most of these murals are poorly ethicized and poorly aestheticized propaganda. The danger is to be bombarded no longer by advertising but by drawings on huge facades that try to educate the citizen with monoclonal aesthetics.”

Instead, the exhibition staged at IWR Jaguar Land Rover was part of a rewriting of the contemporary consistent with the manifesto of ReWriters, Eugenia Romanelli ’s cultural association for which Sten Lex’s works went on sale. “When we talk about revolutionizing thinking, image plays a fundamental role, and street art in particular has a deep connection with the territory. It was born precisely as urban art available to everyone and outside the logic of the art market and consumerism,” Romanelli explains. Street art, luxury brands and Dolce Vita are thus only seemingly at odds, according to the organizers of the initiative. “From this point of view, we feel we are a case apart almost from the beginning. For us the important thing is the work itself. The illegal aspect for us is irrelevant and today more than ever outdated,” explain Sten Lex, hosted by IWR Jaguar Land Rover.

“As IWR and as Jaguar Land Rover, we want to become change makers and create our own sustainability,” says Valentina De Paolis, managing director of the dealership that hosted the event. “Sustainability is not only in the sense of non-pollution (and therefore electric cars, which remains one of Jaguar’s main goals: only cars with electric motors will be produced from 2025), but also as culture and a desire to uphold its principles, including art.” For the dealership, street art joins luxury brands such as Jaguar Land Rover in a surprising response to those who accuse it of normalizing. “Contemporary art,” De Paolis concludes, “is experiencing a period of great creativity in Rome, and IWR has decided to support young artists who are dedicated to making it flourish again.”

Pictured: Sten Lex, Saint, a work created in 2008 for Can’s Festival in London, next to Banksy’s Buddha.

Sten Lex: "no to institution-supported street art, it's propaganda." And they exhibit at Jaguar's

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