Cracking Art chooses the Niemeyer Building as the stage for a spectacular installation of art works

Cracking Art, a group of artists known around the world for over twenty years for their installations of giant animals in recyclable coloured plastic, has chosen the Niemeyer Building, the headquarters of the Mondadori Group, as the stage for a spectacular collective installation of their works.

The art proposed by Cracking Art is colourful, lively, original and interactive, and designed for real contact with the public. All of the creations are characterised by an innovative use of plastic materials: recycling plastics means avoiding toxic and environmentally devastating disposal and making works of art which is then placed in urban, monumental and historical contexts means communicating by means of an innovative aesthetic language, and expressing a special sensitivity towards nature, support for cultural organisations and the recovery of historical sites and monuments. Hence the slogan Art that regenerates art, which has been used for years to present the colourful invasion called Rigeneramento (Regeneration).

Cracking Art has already made 375 invasions of giant animals all over the world: from Bangkok to Moscow, New York and Brussels, as well as Milan, Rome, Florence and Trieste, before arriving today at the Niemeyer Building in Segrate, on the outskirts of Milan. Thanks to this initiative – promoted by Mondadori Portfolio, the Mondadori photo agency and a partner of Cracking Art – the Niemeyer Building will be embellished by more than 280 gigantic works of art depicting wolves, frogs, snails, meerkats and swallows.

The creations will be placed all around the headquarters of the Mondadori Group: the pillars and paving of the building designed by Oscar Niemeyer, and the waterfront and park by landscape architect Pietro Porcinai. The installations of giant animals will also be the focus of a series of activities involving the Mondadori brands, including an exclusive cocktail party La moda fa bene all’arte (Fashion is good for art) organised by Grazia International Network in collaboration with Cracking Art.

The message of the Cracking Art animals

The artists of Cracking Art artists decided to invade the headquarters of Mondadori with five types of animals, each with a colour and a specific meaning:

– The wolf communicates the idea of ​​the herd, of acting for the common good, but also solidity and individual strength;

– The meerkat is a social animal and transmits an idea of ​​endurance thanks to its capacity for cooperation;

– The frog symbolises a metamorphosis, the transformation and the connection between water and the earth. It is the most onomatopoeic of animals: from croak, croak – stagnation; to cracking, cracking – movement.

– The snail, a highly topical animal because its home is associated with communication, the symbol a e-mail, and recalls the organ we use to hear, and therefore the gift of hearing;

– Finally, the swallow suggests the idea of ​​travel but, at the same time, also of coexistence, because it nests in inhabited houses.

Cracking Art Group

Six international artists, who since the birth of the Cracking Art Movement in 1993 with the exhibition Epocale in Milan, curated by Tommaso Trini and Luca Beatrice, underline the Group’s intention to change the history of art through a marked social and environmental commitment combined with a revolutionary and innovative use of plastic materials that evoke the close relationship between the natural and the artificial.