Florence, the Accademia Gallery renews the doors... of the bathrooms with comic stories and riddles

The Accademia Gallery in Florence in collaboration with theAcademy of Fine Arts is launching a new project, Doors to Comics, involving students from the Two-Year Course in Illustration, led by professor Alessandro Baldanzi. To be completely renovated will be the bathroom doors of the Academy Gallery with comic stories and illustrated riddles.

“The idea was born in March this year,” says amused Cecilie Hollberg, director of the Accademia Gallery in Florence. “The bathroom doors necessarily had to be repainted, deteriorated unfortunately not only by time but also by scribbles, writings left by those who had passed through and had wanted to imprint, let’s say, to be kind, a memory of their own. I had recently had an invitation from MiC - Ministry of Culture - to participate in an online conference just on comics for another project in Abu Dhabi. I know how much the Ministry cares about Italian comic book culture, and I thought, why not have characters, comic stories drawn right on those doors? Besides being fun, they could become a kind of ”tag“ to dissuade others from daubing them. I talked about it with Claudio Rocca, director of the Academy of Fine Arts, who enthusiastically accepted the challenge.”

Sixteen students from the Illustration course set to work, using the doors as if they were blank pages to fill them with their own imagination and creativity, including with rebuses such as “find the intruder” or “find the differences,” little stories and anecdotes concerning not only the works preserved in the Gallery but also the city of Florence. Where did the David’s clothes go? What happened to the Little Pig, and the de Verrocchio sphere? And the Diavoletto by Giambologna where is it?: these are some examples. Eight doors where on the outside we find the riddle and on the inside the solution, for a total of sixteen sides in all. The images will be printed on transparent film and applied to the doors themselves starting September 29, a system that is easy to remove in case of damage and wear and tear and will allow the possibility of interchanging the narratives and replacing them, over time, with new ones.

The following participated in the project: Gaia Cesarano, Maria Lucia Carbone, Cosimo Ermini, YINING JIA, Ayawo Endo, Adriana Tripoli, Mattia Morbidelli, Rebecca Lauritano, Alice Tropepi, Silvia Franchini, Gianmarco Tielli, Carlo Settembrini, Marinella Fontana, Lorena Scremin, Anna Capra, Elena Benedetti, Benedetta Trani Gatti.

“With this new artistic foray into the ’home’ of David, we want to highlight the active role that young artists, in this case illustrators, can play in the communication and dissemination of art,” commented the director of the Academy of Fine Arts, Claudio Rocca."Doors to Comics is, therefore, with a view to giving continuity to the collaborative relationship established for some time now with the Gallery, with which, for example, last year we successfully engaged in fostering dialogue between art and its users."

Pictured are some of the drawings that will decorate the bathroom doors

Florence, the Accademia Gallery renews the doors... of the bathrooms with comic stories and riddles

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.