The murals of Orgosolo

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Countless murals adorn the streets and alleyways of Orgosolo. The “murales” tell of customs, traditions, culture and political resistance. Most of these murals were created during the turbulent sixties and seventies. Even today, they depict people's everyday lives. They show farmers, patricians, power struggles or social issues, women at work and general scenes from everyday life.

In the meantime, the murals have aged. Faded by wind and weather and partly weathered on the walls of the buildings. The plaster is crumbling. A unique, ramshackle charm.

In my photographs, I want to place the individual works of art at the center of the view.
I have detached the pictures from the walls so that I can show them as individual works, as works of art. I don't see graffiti, I see art.

As I walk through the alleyways of Orgosolo, the motifs and paintings become inseparable from the backdrop of the town. Pictures, streets and buildings merge into one another. The actual motifs extend far beyond the field of vision of the eye and thus also go beyond the edge of the photograph. Figures in the walls literally walk into an alley. A white horse runs through the alleys and has left its image in the wall. The image field, the photograph, is embedded in a passe-partout that continues the content.

Saggezza Antica. Three women are painted sitting and working on the wall of a small driveway.
In the foreground, the painted floor merges seamlessly into the real floor in the passe-partout. The railing and the building behind it are real, but visually difficult to separate from the painted wall in front of it. Is the railing protruding into the passepartout on the left just a shadow? Where does the basement in the picture above belong? Images and reality merge.

The dancing Teresa Strada and her colorful cheerfulness remain unaffected by the rough wall, which is marred by water streaks and algae growth. Time seems to have passed her by without a trace. Her joy lives on.

L'universitá. The ravages of time have caused the façade to fade and crumble. Brown, cracked and repaired in places, it is both background and frame. An older painting shines through underneath the crumbling plaster. The professor or student(?) sitting at a table stands out in bright colors. The colors are intensified as a direct contrast to the barren surroundings and thus become the focus of the picture.