Mauro Bubbico is not a ‘storyteller’ of hidden depths. He is someone who has turned his in-depth exploration of the subcultures underlying these territories not into a nostalgic reminder of how we used to be and what we have lost, but rather into a stimulus for their reinterpretation, in order to outline a different present and a vision of a new, more conscious future. Through his projects, he asserts his belonging to a magical SOUTH, not as a rhetorical exercise but rather as a dialectical one, born of the need to bring to the fore a popular culture rooted in hundreds of years of myths and rituals, a visual bestiary that seeks not only to convey the essence of a southern mindset deeply steeped in its Mediterranean and local culture, but also to link its destinies to a broad cultural trajectory spanning the entire culture of the twentieth century.
Mauro Bubbico can be considered the true heir to Italy’s popular visual culture, which took shape within the tradition of pre- and post-war agricultural Italy and which remains alive to this day. His imagery is never merely decorative, yet he constructs rich images – a richness that is the very essence of that material culture which manages to survive the post-digital nature of our contexts.
