Florentine Guerilla Street Art
Reid Coen | Imprint Tours
It’s easy to love street art by Clet.
Image | Reid Coen
As a guide for Rick Steves’ Europe, I have been through Florence Italy quite regularly over the years. I had noticed the funny artistic additions to Florence's street signs over the years without really taking a close look. In 2016, I started to get the joke. Clet Abraham, a street artist, had been secretly adding clever images to the street signs in Florence for the previous half decade or so. A Frenchman, Clet had taken up residence in the city and his street art has proliferated there. His work can also be seen in other Italian and European towns. But Florence, as it was for the Renaissance 500 years ago, is ground zero for ground-breaking art.
His favorite target is the “Do Not Enter” signs— red disks with a white horizontal bar. Their message of rejection seems to be too much for Clet to ignore. The number of visual puns inspired by these simple "no-go" signs is truly prolific. The art is both entertaining and provocative. During that visit in 2016, I—like thousands of tourists before me—embarked on a "Clet" urban scavenger hunt. They are everywhere. And almost without exception, they made me smile. And often they make one pause and reflect.
Authority loves authority.
Image | Reid Coen
What I managed to perceive is that Clet’s art is a polite and clever protest. More than anything else, and taken collectively, his street sign art is a quiet and creative call to simply get along. It is a call to question the creeping influences present in all western cultures – our growing tendency to heed the less noble side of our natures. Proclivities encouraged by our increasingly bureaucratized government institutions, by our own fears and anxieties, by the demands of political correctness, by increasingly strident partisan voices, and by the rising demagoguery of our political leaders.
It is an entreaty to officials to not be so stern and hidebound and a clarion for citizens to not forget the age-old Italian attitude of enjoying the journey of life, not just the destination. For me, the ubiquitous presence of Clet signs has added an amusing and Quixotic element to well trodden and familiar streets, but also an appeal to my higher nature. And isn't that what art is all about?
Images | Reid Coen
Originally published September 2, 2016
