
Malta Talks #2 - Confronting walls
May 6, 2022 – May 8, 2022
For this second appointment we presented Consegna Sacra, the first fanzine of Riky Boy published by Concretipo will be presented. A small volume with a punk aesthetic and a “do it yourself” ethic, a confirmation of the return to explosive fanzine production with photocopies, felt pens and little else. This is no longer a fringe phenomenon, but a response to a need that is as clear as it is urgent: the recovery of a direct and straightforward expressiveness that is genuine and quite unlike the “over-definition” typical of the digital world. So it’s back to handwriting, collage, and simple bindings with a stapler.
From the collaboration between Concretipo, A Testa Alta E.T.S. and Street Levels Gallery, was born the initiative MALTA TALKS, MURI DI CONFRONTO –, a series of appointments aimed at investigating the currents of graffiti and muralism. Through the dialogue between artists, street art experts and the public, it is possible to get closer to some of the main figures of this culture, using a simple and communicative visual medium: the fanzine.
To paraphrase the title of Stephen King’s first book, we might say, “Sometimes they come back,” and as is often the case, the beauty is in discovering the reasons for this rediscovery. Together with Street Levels Gallery and Concretipo, Rikyboy and Francesco Ciaponi of Edizioni Del Frisco will provide an in-depth look at the fanzine punk movement at the second Malta Talks.
Malta Talks #2 – Confronting walls
➤Riky Boy
What are the modern divinities? Riccardo Sala a.k.a. Rikyboy, , born in 1996, uses atavistic questions and images in an attempt to excavate the spiritual echo and bring it back to the contemporary. While deepening his sculptural, painterly, and chalcographic practices, turning to intervention and urban militancy, and specializing in the study of graphics, Rikyboy cultivates a visionary obsession with the intangible, the ancestral, the cult of the sacred and the profane. His aesthetic is dark, nostalgic, gothic. His symbols are everyday details charged with abysmal meanings: Keys and crossbows, feathers and chalices, abstractly designed objects that lie between black and white. Rikyboy’s visual language is profound and ascetic. An ode to life in the resurrection they find on the wall, on the canvas, and on digital material. A deadly dream in the exhalation of their last breath, which dies out among the aged chrome.
➤Concretipo
Concretipo is a creative laboratory of graphic design and printing, founded in 2017 by Giuseppe and Linda, two professional designers who linked by a common passion for graphics, illustration and production of editorial and artistic projects. The creative studio aims to offer professionals, companies, students or enthusiasts the opportunity to develop their creative projects thanks to the support of specific skills and printing machinery at its disposal. Specialized in graphic design, product and printing, Concretipo operates in different fields of graphic design and production: from branding to product design, pagination and editorial project curatorship, from editorial production to prototyping, merchandising development and fine art printing. In compliance with these objectives, the studio is the only one in Tuscany to have introduced the Risograph, a limited edition printing technique, which uses a yield of analog and ecological printing at the service of the potential of design and digital graphics and contemporary.
➤Francesco Ciaponi (Frisco Speaks)
Scholar, consultant and storyteller of the history of graphic design and independent publishing born in 1978. He holds courses, seminars and workshops on the history of publishing and graphics with particular reference to the underground and independent phenomenon. He graduated in History of printing and publishing at the University of Pisa with a thesis entitled “Beat World: the birth of underground publishing in Italy”. In 2010 he founded Italian Poster Rock Art, the Italian archive of poster art. He collaborates with Italian and international magazines such as: The Concern Newstand (U.S.A.), Moof Magazine (England), Polpettas Magazine (Spain) and Artribune. Since 2016 he directs the graphic design and publishing site Edizioni del Frisco: small independent publishing. He manages the homonymous publishing house since 2017 conceiving and creating books that cover graphic design and publishing topics through collaborations with illustrators in Italy and abroad. He also runs the independent culture magazine Friscospeaks. Since 2019, he is a professor of History of printing and publishing at LABA, Free Academy of Fine Arts in Rimini and since 2020 of Phenomenology of Media at LABA Florence. Furthermore, since 2020 he collaborates with the magazine Artribune.
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