The "Courtier" revisited in a street art key: Ozmo's homage to Raphael

The latest work by street artist Ozmo (Gionata Gesi; Pontedera, 1975), a street art reinterpretation of Raphael’s Portrait of Baldassarre Castiglione, preserved in the Louvre, was presented this morning in Saint-Ouen-sur-Seine, near Paris. The work was created as an urban regeneration project but also as a message of hope and rebirth through urban art: it is promoted by GemellArte, an international contemporary art festival created to revitalize twinning between Italian and foreign cities and enhance their local heritage.

Ozmo created the tribute to Urbinate and the author of The Courtier during a residency in Paris organized as part of the 2020 edition of GemellArte, entitled Renaissance, and which built a new bridge between the cities of Terni and Saint-Ouen-Sur-Seine, twinned since 1962, through the residencies of Caroline Derveaux, who executed two murals in the Umbrian city, and Ozmo, who instead left his work in France. Ozmo is one of the pioneers and major international exponents of urban art, the protagonist of exhibitions and monumental interventions in the most important capitals of contemporary and urban art. His work decorates a wall in the Soubise neighborhood, the scene of dramatic news incidents. Ozmo then devised a reinterpretation of The Courtier with the addition of layers that dialogue with each other, opening up new semantic and conceptual meanings to the original work.

“I am happy and honored to have been able to work in such a dense context of social, ethnic and urbanistic stimuli and layers as Saint-Ouen,” Ozmo said in presenting his creation. “I hope that the work will be a stimulus for the difficult neighborhood in which it is located and that after the youth gang clash episode that brought it to the headlines some time ago for this area there will be a real renaissance.”

“I am very happy with the way Ozmo’s residency turned out,” says Tiziana Zumbo Vital, art historian and curator of the GemellArte Festival in Saint-Ouen-Sur-Seine: “the interaction with the neighborhood was very interesting, his work seduced young and old who followed the evolution of the work with great attention. The end result exceeded all expectations because this painting, in addition to being of a very high artistic quality, has already become local heritage. I could not expect more.”

“Seeing the work that Ozmo accomplished in just a few days, succeeding in a titanic feat, in the midst of a pandemic, amidst problems, complications and restrictions,” says Chiara Ronchini, artistic director of the Festival, “gives us that confidence and hope to continue, despite everything, in the direction of beauty. A Renaissance that will never stop regenerating a world where art is called to the forefront to fight to safeguard our souls. The beauty and power of Ozmo’s work represent a symbolic tale between history and the contemporary, restoring to the city a magical place where we can dream, imagine, and go beyond.”

“What we are celebrating today in Saint-Ouen,” stresses Alessio Crisantemi, president of Gn Media, organizer of the Festival, “is a kind of earthly miracle. Not only from an artistic point of view, which is thanks to an artist who is certainly divine such as Ozmo, but also from a social, cultural and political point of view. Thanks to this second edition of GemellArte, focused on Street art and the theme of Rebirth, we have witnessed the regeneration of an urban area (in Saint-Ouen, as was also the case in recent days in Terni) by returning a space to the community. But giving it back in a renewed guise that makes it once again accessible to the citizenry. For a real ’Renaissance’, in terms of urban planning, but also morally. Which is what art always succeeds in, and even more so Street art. Indeed, these days of residency were marked not only by the hard work of the artist Ozmo (to whom our deepest thanks go for getting involved and participating in our initiative) but also by the extraordinary participation of the city of Saint-Ouen, both through its Administration and through the entire citizenry. Who appreciated, supported and encouraged this operation. For a true Rebirth with which the pact of friendship between the cities of Terni and Saint-Ouen is renewed, which I am sure will continue to shine over time, including through art.”

Gionata Gesi, aka “Ozmo,” was born in Pontedera, Pisa, and trained at the Academy of Fine Arts in Florence. Already present since the 1990s in the Italian writing/graffiti underground, in 2001 he moved to Milan, collaborating with the city’s major art galleries, signing with his first name. At the same time he intervened in public space with his tag “Ozmo,” laying the groundwork for what would later become Italian street art, of which he was one of the pioneers and exponents internationally. His interventions are characterized by imagery laden with symbols and images that span art history, pop culture, advertising language and encyclopedic illustration. Since 2003, Ozmo’s works have been on the circuit of Italian art fairs and private galleries and in important public museum collections. Italian exhibitions include Palazzo della Ragione (2005), Pac (2007) , Palazzo Reale (2007), up to his solo show “Pre Giudizio Universale,” at the Museo del 900 in Milan and the creation of a permanent work on the terrace of the Museum of Contemporary Art in Rome in 2012. Ozmo has made exhibitions and monumental public art interventions in the most important capitals of contemporary and urban art: New York, Miami, Chicago, San Francisco, London, Shanghai, Paris, Baltimore, Berlin, Sao Paulo, Havana, Beirut, Milan, Rome. He lives and works between Milan and Paris.

Pictured: Ozmo’s mural in Saint-Ouen-Sur-Seine.

The "Courtier" revisited in a street art key: Ozmo's homage to Raphael

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