In a way to turn a vision from just a dream into a gaze,
Absolut Vodka is painting the dull walls of urban buildings with extravagant hand-painted wallpapers. To-date, Absolut has invited a group of visionaries (the lastest of whom is Italian street artist Ozmo) and borrowed their eyes, colors and ideas.
For Ozmo's Absolut Wallpaper project he thought of a composition of elements obtained with the contribution of participants to the web contest You Wall 2.0. The sharing and the remixing of sources and the site specific performance are part of his way of making art. Through these instruments he takes fun on acting on the language of symbols and images in order to arise in viewers mind the following question: "What am I actually looking at?" He recontextualizes the "world" of proposals, weaved, mixed up or opposed between them, he moulds and conceives his personal In An Absolut World and brings greek mithological figure Atlas to sustain it!
For rock star, Deborah Ann Dyer (Skin) – the first one to end up not only on the wall at Porta Ticinese, but also on a brand new space in Rome – Skin wanted to turn into a wallpaper what defines her best: the contradictions of her rock soul. «And I wanna pay attention not to fall pray to the clichès which are too often linked to my world..», she clarifies right away. Thus here's the idea the voice from Skunk Anansie had for the first "rockpaper" conceived for In an Absolut World: a curvy Lioness designed by lights, who roars through an all-black symmetric structure, the ideal clash between warm lights and cold geometries, the soft grace of Skin's extraordinary voice and the brutal strenght of her music. My wallpaper is rock. But it's not just rock, she insists. Creating a vision with the power of rock doesn't necessarily mean giving up the sophistication of a timeless image.
Because delicacy and strenght, elegance and toughness can live together. In one single voice...as proved by Skin. And on one wall, too..as.you'll find out in front of her Absolut Wall.
For architect Gio Pagani, he reinterpreted the concept of his Wall&Decò papers, mixing those patterns born from the union of ornamental tradition and the vision of the designer, with the face and image of a great icon of our times: Keith Haring. Within Pagani's project, the classic brocade pattern becomes a texture of pixels, which compose the face of the artist who was the first to feel the urge to turn the city's grays into a blank canvass to paint. The choice of this great interpreter of the 80's NYC art - who's always had a special connection with Milano (his appearances in town are countless) - is deeply rooted in the history of graffiti: the urban expression which more than any other has redefined the relationship between art and urban spaces. Keith Haring once said: «Art is for everyone, and this is the aim I want to work for». Who else, better than him, could have lent his face to the second Wallpaper for an Absolut world?
For designer Alessandro Guerrier, he's designed a wallpaper which makes everything looking more "beautiful".
Well, in fact, rather the opposite… 'Cause, as Alessandro says: The issue is not necessarily connected to the word "beautiful" while rather to the concept of "communicative". In my opinion something is "decorative" when its image, even if individualistic and fantastic, gives back a system of information connected to the will of setting up a peculiar relationship with the observer. I believe the decoration makes the connection between an object and a person more intimate.
