About the exhibition:

For over thirty-five years, Blaise Tobia has documented street art across his travels in Italy. At the intersection of social commentary, absurdism, and cultural testimony, “Wheat Paste and Red Sauce” is an exhibition of photographed wall art and street scenes, proudly presented by Da Vinci Art Alliance. 

Featuring framed medium-to-large prints hung in a crowded salon-style manner as well as nontraditional installations to provide a sense of spontaneity and realism, Tobia’s extensive documentation of graffiti and street art offers an authentic witnessing of the contemporary Italian scene and its many crossovers into the Western/American political context. A line of universality can be drawn further to parallel practices existing in the Greater Philadelphia Area, amplifying local cultural conversations and critiques amid city neighborhoods. 

“Walking through the streets of bohemian Roman neighborhoods like Trastevere, you are treated to one display of great street art after another. The work is political, witty, and culturally aware. Some walls are pasted densely, from the sidewalk to as high as the posters can reach,” Tobia has said of the exhibition.

Red Sauce and Wheat Paste will be on view in Gallery 2 at Da Vinci Art Alliance from April 28th to May 24th. Photographing Street Art: from Rome to Philadelphia will take place on Sunday, Mary 17th from 2—3:30pm.

ABOUT THE Artist:

Tobia is an emeritus professor of Art & Art History at Drexel University, where he taught a wide variety of courses over 32 years. He earned a BA in Fine Arts at Brooklyn College (1974) and an MFA in Visual Arts at the University of California, San Diego (1977). He was a documentary photographer in 1978-79 for the CCF CETA Artists Project in NYC, which was the largest federally funded artists' employment project since the WPA. He came to Philadelphia in 1985 to begin his work at Drexel. He has been an exhibiting artist for over 50 years and has had numerous solo and group shows in the region, nationally, and in Italy and China. With his wife/partner, Virginia Maksymowicz, he coordinates the CETA Arts Legacy Project, which seeks to preserve and promote the history of the project they both worked for almost 50 years ago, which they see as a viable model for government support of artists in today's cultural crisis.