Exhibition “Connections” | Pisa, Palazzo Blu

Palazzo Blu presents a selection of original drawings, as well as photographs and videos, from the volumes Lamiere, Salvezza and storiemigranti, published by Feltrinelli Comics between 2018 and 2019.

The journey begins in Africa, in one of Nairobi’s slums, Deep Sea, with the original drawings of Lamiere, the result of a collaboration between illustrator Lucio Ruvidotti and writers/journalists Danilo Deninotti and Giorgio Fontana. The book is an acute work of graphic journalism, presenting the reader with aid workers and kids ‘made’ of glue, nurses and children who have been HIV-positive since birth, but also glimpses the hope of rebirth on the horizon. The clear graphic line, the vivid and sometimes hallucinated colours, highlight one of the artist’s technical peculiarities, combining ink and digital.

The exhibition allows the visitor to approach sensitive current issues through the sensitive eyes of highly skilled artists and photographers, who dialogue with key art-historical themes. It is also possible to observe the variety of techniques used by contemporary illustrators (from watercolour to digital), and to study the entire artistic process, being able to admire not only the original plates (or prints taken from digital processing, as in the case of Sio), but also the preparatory material, consisting of notebooks, photographs and drawings.