“Let’s hope that we soon see Moneyless and his orange van arrive in Florence, ready to leave his traces on our walls“
Looking for Moneyless
Moneyless has done work on walls all over the world, from Portugal to Switzerland, Mexico and the United States, participating in many Street Art festivals. Moneyless was born in Milan but grew up in Tuscany. He first studied at the Academy of Carrara and then at ISIA in Florence. And strangely, it is Florence that has no walls with Moneyless’ art. It seems absurd but it’s true. He had painted some a long time ago but they were covered over. All around Tuscany, however, there is plenty of the artist’s work with their great colorful backgrounds and precise geometric lines and shapes, starting with his hometown Lucca, where it’s not rare to come across some of his works.
In 2016, he was the protagonist of Street Art Agliana, a project sponsored by the municipality of Agliana, in the province of Pistoia, together with Keras Società Cooperativa, which annually invites a street artist to participate. Two walls were entrusted to Moneyless: the municipal warehouse, with a surface area of 360 square meters that made it one of the largest urban art projects in Tuscany, and the wall of a school, to bring young students closer to art and get them involved.
In Pisa, in 2017, as part of the initiative Welcome to Pisa, Moneyless painted two walls: one on the back wall of the Waterway Police depot, clearly visible from a garden and the street, a site-specific work with large soft shapes on colorful backgrounds that refer to the city’s colors. The other work was on one of the piers where the Darsena Pisana intersects, and here the Tuscan artist’s characteristic precise and obsessive interlocking circles are superimposed on the harmonious shades of soft colorful shapes. Both in Pisa and Pistoia, the works are located within festivals and events that attempt to redevelop areas and suburbs by creating new contemporary art districts. While Pisa boasts, as trailblazing and inspiring, the mural painted in 1989 by Keith Haring on the walls of the church of Sant’Antonio’s rectory, in Pistoia the initiative of the young Keras cooperative is bringing various street artists to work in the town of Agliana.
Arezzo also wanted a wall by Moneyless and he painted it during the Icastica event. He made a good five works of street art on the walls of Arezzo. His are simple, essential forms that have no lack of rhythm, depth and dynamism.
“Less is more” the great Mies van der Rohe said, and it is precisely this quote of the German architect’s that the Tuscan artist has on his home page.. Moneyless’ research covered various dimensions before arriving at urban art: paintings on paper, canvas, sculptures, suspended installations, and experimenting with the infinite possibilities of geometry. These smaller works too, that are both studies and a more intimate relationship with the forms that the true research parallels, compared to the urban art works, have traveled to different parts of the world, from Berlin to Los Angeles. Let’s hope that we soon see Moneyless and his orange van arrive in Florence, ready to leave his traces on our walls. In the meantime, if you’re in Tuscany, take a trip to these new street art districts, where Moneyless is one of the protagonists.
From :: This is so contemporary :: by Serena Becagli