I started practicing Brandalism before there was a word to define it. In the early 1990s, I began writing on advertisements with phrases that contradicted the media society. Gradually, I started creating graphic interventions on the faces of models in billboards, and in 2000, I made abstract shapes that I likened to “sores,” as if the signs were synonymous with the corruption hidden behind the world of advertising brand. At the same time, I started posting posters with glue, creating my own anti-brand.
Roadside Advertisings . 2000s
“At the same time, I started posting posters with glue, creating my own anti-brand.
In the 2000s, I gained more confidence in the fact that what I created both as visual art and music was strange, meaning that all my audiovisual work, everything that interested or I realized, had a bizarre aspect. In the early days, in the first half of the 1990s, many of my peers from the writing or rave scene, often older and with much more experience, considered my work to be wrong. As a result, I painted and played music alone for almost seven years; I wasn’t understood, partly because I used different media and various expressive techniques, which created suspicion towards me. However, this situation significantly influenced my creative approach, because painting alone and living in a city like Genoa prevented me from being influenced by other artists or the fashion of large metropolises. This allowed me to develop a personal approach capable of exploring multiple techniques and media. Additionally, those were years of intense experimentation; the internet was not yet flooded with images like today, and I didn’t know exactly what I was doing until someone told me it was called Street Art.”
(Text by Bignotti Cesare extract from the conference “Street Art: The Street as an Exposed Space”, Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation, Venice 2007).
Roadside Advertising _ 2006
Roadside Advertising _ 2004/2005
Installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art of Villa Croce, Genoa _ 21 November 2024.
Original works by Cesare Bignotti from the street in the 2000s, now a day part of the permanent collection of the Contemporary Art Museum of Villa Croce in Genoa, were installed on-site for his participation as an artist and expert in contemporary art at the event: “Discovering Contemporary Art: Theories, Practices, and Languages,” curated by “Uni Auser Genoa.” The installation explores the theme of the value of vandalism in post-urban contemporary art.
The History of Urban Art, a form of expression, that has origins that trace back to early human civilization. The practice began with prehistoric petroglyphs—symbolic carvings and images etched onto rock surfaces, serving as humanity’s first ventures into visual communication. These rudimentary forms of expression laid the groundwork for an expansive evolution of the language. In contemporary discourse, the significance of post-urban art continues to evolve, particularly in a digital age where art is often consumed online and shaped by popular consensus. Questions arise regarding the authenticity and value of art when colored by trends and algorithms. How do we measure an artist’s worth in a society that sometimes reduces their narrative to mere digital presence, diluted over time and interaction? As we transitioned into the 21st century, a new phenomenon emerged: post-vandalism. This movement stands out for the use of a visual and narrative language of rupture, the subjects are often inspired by the charm of urban aesthetics, the periphery, the degradation, factors that reflect the state of health of contemporary society, at the same time, this current winks at Dadaism and pop art sharing a territory already explored in the official artistic context, but which remains in the society that oozes it from the pores of capitalism, these themes addressed by the new generations have been in the last 20 years the authentic reflection of the innovation of contemporary urban art.
Cesare Bignotti’s generation developed gradually through disorganized actions that adopted new expressive languages, completely detached from traditional writing, towards the late 1990s and early 2000s. This coincided with the beginning of the anti-globalization era, particularly in July 2001 with the G8 summit in Genoa, the city where the artist was born, raised, and still lives. The era concluded in September 2001 with the collapse of the Twin Towers. Part of this decadent aesthetic, which still has repercussions today such as the pandemic and the post-Covid international crisis is reflected in many of Cesare Bignotti’s works. Additionally, his pseudonym, Useless Idea, is a product of these events.
(Presentation text by Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum, 21 November 2024)
Poster Propaganda – Roadside Advertising _ 2000 . Permanent Collection, Villa Croce Museum of Genoa.
“In the early 2000s, influenced by communication studies, I began to engage in poster campaigns featuring “subversive” or “reflective” phrases such as “We often call useless what we can’t understand” or “You are useless.” These phrases relate to the meaning behind my nickname “Useless Idea,”. This intended to express the idea that what we often deem unimportant not is, in fact, useless, reflecting my discomfort with society a sentiment that was further emphasized by the historical context. “Useless” can be understood as an anti-hero, as an anti-communication, anti-brand, and yet, at the same time, a brand in itself.”
(Text by Bignotti Cesare extract from the conference “Discovering Contemporary Art: Theories, Practices, and Languages,” (Presentation text by Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum, 21 November 2024), 21 November . Genoa 2024).
Poster Propaganda – Roadside Advertising _ 2000 . Permanent Collection, Villa Croce Museum of Genoa.
Roadside Advertising _ 2004
“This series of works entitled ‘Doom’, created in the 2000s, is significantly influenced by the imagery of John Carpenter’s film ‘They Live’.
Title: Give Me Your Land! – Roadside Advertising . Private Collection _ 2021
Title: Give Me Your Land! – Roadside Advertising . Private Collection _ 2021
Roadside Advertising _ 2024
“This recent street intervention has proven to be controversial, causing an uproar because many people interpreted it as a portrait of Giorgia Meloni, (the Italian Prime Minister), covered in a black tint that revealed only her eyes and hair. This evoked associations in the public with “Faccetta Nera,” a song from 1935 linked to fascist propaganda justifying Italian colonial campaigns, particularly in Africa. It was not my intention to associate this ident, because often my work is born unconsciously. Naturally, I have my own thoughts, some of which are explicit, while most arise from actions to which I associate subliminal and less direct messages. However, once this interpretation was created by the public, I too recognized the same message and chose to adopt it.”
(Text by Bignotti Cesare extract from the conference “Discovering Contemporary Art: Theories, Practices, and Languages,” (Presentation text by Villa Croce Contemporary Art Museum, 21 November 2024), 21 November . Genoa 2024).