At Contemporary Istanbul 2014, the largest international art fair in the Near East region, you can see the artworks by Felipe Cardeña | Savina Gallery booth #IKM302

The activity of urban art by Felipe Cardeña & Cardeña Street Boys intensifies. Between October and November 2014, two murals have arisen in two different areas in Milan.
The first is a “combo” made ​​in the “Gardens Community in Transit” in Montello Street (a green area subtracted from the degradation by neighborhood association) together with pop artists Tomoko Nagao, Domenico Pellegrino, Max Ferrigno and Stefano Gentile.

The other mural is made ​​during “Geotag 2”, the second edition of public art event curated by Christian Gangitano in the multiethnic area around Padua Avenue with the Council of Area 2 and Crespi Committee: the streets involved in the decoration of the walls are Thermopylae Street, where stands a large mural by Felipe Cardeña & Street Boys along with Tomoko Nagao, Marco Aurelio Street, where there is a large fresco by Bros and Sonda, Crespi Street and some adjacent streets.

In Thermopylae Street, Felipe Cardeña and Cardeña Street Boys have restored the first wall began last year, during the first edition of Geotag, which represented the face of Antinous (the favorite of the Emperor Hadrian and one of the male sex symbol of the ancient Rome), surrounded by a classic backdrop floral characteristic of the Cuban artist. Then they continued the work with another mural, this time hosting a figure more “pop”, a big Superman with four hands, always surrounded, of course, by the magic floral “Cardeña world”.

The mural has already been quite successful among the inhabitants of the neighborhood, and also the well-known musician Giovanni Allevi has come on Thermopylae Street to be filmed in front of the face of Antinous, created by Felipe & Cardeña Boys.

Brightly coloured and very floral, directly inspired by his overflowing collage, Felipe Cardeña inaugurates a new production of fun design objects and clothing, always dedicated to Flower Power, where he proposes a particular aspect of his creative activity: the ability to invade, with its flowers, every nook and cranny of our daily lives, starting with the objects for the home.

Renowned for his lush, colourful floral language (a “meticulously detailed language, as obsessive as a cloistered nun’s daily rosary”, as Vittorio Sgarbi defined it), produced using the collage technique, Felipe Cardeña gives a fresh presentation of a particular aspect of his creative activity for the Salone del Mobile – his flair for invading every nook and cranny of our daily lives with his flowers, starting with household objects.

Back in 2011 in the MISIAD (Milano si autoproduce design) exhibition curated by Alessandro Mendini, at the Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, Felipe showed a part of his extra-pictorial production – wall clocks, household objects, notebooks, address books, briefcases, but also rather unusual objects, like “artist’s books”, entirely created out of collage, or “artist’s bindings” for collected sets of books. Or certain mysterious ornaments, the so-called “metaphysical objects”, like the “box of deep thoughts”.
In an interview with Aldo Della Vecchia for the Venice Biennale Cuban Pavilion catalogue, Felipe actually said, “I dream of being asked to create a house completely invaded by my flowers, with flowers on all the walls, doors, objects, furniture, rugs and beds, and then flowers sprouting out of the walls, gushing out of the bath taps, bursting out of the wardrobes and windows… And even in the garden, an avalanche of flowers – real, fake, artificial, cultivated, wild, exotic, European, all mixed up together, in an infinite, ever-expanding whirlwind…”

Now he continues his “felipitation” to the domestic world and, in collaboration with the brand Orsorama, has produced a series of pillows and T-shirts, which directly reproduce the themes of his colorful and lush language: a project where, with his unusual language, the artist proposes a “floral reconstruction of the world”, which not only spreads over objects but also all over the surrounding space, almost to the point of creating a fairytale environment, buried under a widespread, omnipresent continuum of flowers, with joyful, eccentric and bizarre overtones.

Pop Up Revolution! is a movement founded by Achille Bonito Oliva under the artistic direction of Electronic Art Café. A viral and dynamic movement that defies the traditional categories that always separed traditional art from design, fashion, communication and urban art. The show will open on June 11 starting from 18.30 to 24.00  in Milan at Caserma XXIV Maggio, via Vincenzo Monti 59 .
Then the exhibition will follow at MdM Museum in Porto Cervo from July 5th to September 24.

www.facebook.com/popuprevolution
www.electronicartcafe.com
www.mdmmuseum.it