I recently came across the Italian street artist known as Blu from watching his animated clip called “Muto” in a film class that I’m taking where we are discussing the history of animation. I don’t really have much of a background in street art or graffiti, but I have a background in studying and working with various animation software (Maya), but this takes what I’ve known about this genre of art to a whole different level. While watching the animation for the first time, I just felt completely baffled by the creativity, imagination and sheer determination that it took for the artist to plan and complete the project. The various characters, situations and scenes that are being illustrated just seem to come to life through the way that they are composed on various surfaces that I would never expect to see animated in such a way as in Muto. I also feel that the other 5 million people who have seen this video on Youtube they must feel as amazed as I am.
Muto is a work of art that is comprised of a series of two-dimensional painted renderings across urban landscapes throughout Buenos Aires, Argentina and Baden, Germany. These works of art are very large and continuous in their fluid appearance while also being shown in very surrealistic depictions. I read a little bit of the background and history on the artist and I discovered that what he does is perfectly legal in those various locations, which I think is pretty interesting.
Viewing a work of art such as this really makes me look at street art in a larger context now. I guess in a way, I’ve always been impressed with a lot of the elaborate displays of art I have seen on brick/concrete walls throughout the city, but I feel kind of spoiled now when I see someone like Blu come along with their new approach. It inspires me to look at my own artwork in a different context as well – maybe I will take my next drawing and break it down into an animated sequence that shows the process of making it? Even still, I don’t think it would even come close to the process that is involved in a project such as Muto.
