CONTEMPORARY MESOZOIC Ancient Forms Appear in Modern Metropolis

The artistic collaboration, UrbanSolid, specializes in creating three-dimensional works that meld graffiti with sculpture.  Their public art pops up across Italy in seemingly unlikely places.  In 2013, UrbanSolid decorated the urbanity of Milan with a project called “Contemporary Mesozoic”.

The idea that hatched the Contemporary Mesozoic was to bring about a meshing of imagery that alludes to a distant prehistoric past with the discarded and deteriorating walls found in modern day Milan.  It is a renewal of value and interest imposed upon these residuals of urban decay using the almost ironic brightly colored molds of dinosaur skeletons.  The irony is found in the use of what should be symbols of death or decay, reinvented with color, and thus given an aura of vigor that stands in stark contrast to the drab surfaces that they appear to dance across.

“As every UrbanSolid installation the plan starts from a simple idea: reproduce some fossils to be placed on the city’s walls.  And so, as a game, or better, a video game, some prehistoric animals come back to life on crumbling and unused walls.  Enameled with fluorescent colors the “new” fossils appear to the citizens as a hallucination that comes from the past, giving the onlooker the illusion of living in an ancient metropolis.”