MACHAS

“L’Antiporta”: Agostino Iacurci’s new stunning mural

Agostino Iacurci has unveiled his latest, large-scale mural painting, “L’Antiporta”, in Pomezia, Italy. The 600 sqm mural painting embraces the public library’s architectural design, triggering new surprising narratives in the contemporary urban fabric.

“L’Antiporta is not only the architectural structure that precedes the access to a second door,” says Iacurci “, but it also indicates the page before the title page, especially in ancient books. It often depicts an allegorical portrait or illustration, which I think it’s perfectly fitting for the mural’s location. Architecture and literature are the two focal points of the piece”.

Iacurci seamlessly weaves into his art iconographic classical, architectural and historical references such as the Book VI of the Aeneid, which narrates the encounter between Aeneas and the Cumaean Sibyl, who predicts he will land on the Lazio coast. The Heroon of Aeneas’s mysterious tuff door and the statues of young women of the Lavinium Archaeological Museum in Pomezia, as well as the doors crossed by Virgil and Dante in the Divine Comedy.

The work is aimed at creating a bridge between the contemporary and the origin of history and myth. The dialogue with the Classics has guided Iacurci to design the large access portal to the library and amplify the building’s symbolic function, electing it as a temple of knowledge, a secular oracle of the city, a privileged place in which to obtain answers to one’s own questions.

L’Antiporta is part of the “Sol Indiges” project, curated by Marcello Smarrelli, which will also feature a new work by Ivan Tresoldi.

“This phenomenon that we could call New Muralism represents a powerful tool for the diffusion and promotion of contemporary art,” says Smarrelli to Artribune. “Thanks to its immediate language, it manages to communicate across the board, directly reaching different and heterogeneous audiences”.

“Sol Indiges propose an unprecedented vision of the city. Restoring the communicative power of mural painting as a manifesto, it intervenes on places that have always contributed to contrast the cultural desertification, such as the school and the library, and stimulates curiosity and critical thinking to generate new ideas.”

See more of Agostino Iacurci’s work here.