Statement
For me, street art is public art and as such it must be able to speak to people. Art, in itself, is something complex and intangible. Food on the other hand is a universal language: we are what we eat.
-CIBO, street artist-
Who is Cibo?
Pier Paolo Spinazzè, aka CIBO was born on 1 April 1982 in Vittorio Veneto in the province of Treviso.
With a high predisposition for painting and creative thinking, he trained as an artist first by attending the State Art High School of Verona (Boccioni) then continuing with a year at the Academy of Fine Arts of Verona (Cignaroli) then specializing as a designer at the IUAV.
Since the end of the 90s he has been active as a street artist and wall designer under various names, always with the aim of promoting a different form of mural communication, capable of actively involving people and expressing even complex concepts with extreme simplicity.
Under the tag FOOD, his best-known signature, his art evolves over the years using the metaphor of food to address the most complex themes and challenges that grip contemporary society.
The metaphor
of food
For CIBO, street art is public art and therefore at the service of the community. Food is a primary human need and a universal language. We all eat, we all need it.
If you ask the lady on the street who CIBO is she will answer: CIBO is the artist who covers the bad with the good.
Obviously, the art of CIBO is much more than this. Behind each of his works lie symbolisms that can be interpreted at different levels of depth which arrive more or less immediately depending on the observer.
Food is something we know and understand but in the hands of the street artist CIBO, from the simplest to the most complex work, becomes a means to raise awareness, make people reflect and push people to act actively with respect to the challenges that the human being of our time must overcome to guarantee a future.
From eco-sustainability to human rights, passing through culture and inclusiveness for a better society and world.
When I explain the concept of food language as a metaphor, I always give the example of caprese. Caprese is considered among the symbols par excellence of Italian cuisine in the world. Above all, the ingredients that compose it perfectly represent the Italian flag. Caprese, however, has very little of Italian. In fact, mozzarella is Italian but the red tomato is originally from Colombia, basil from India and if you like it with a drizzle of olive oil then you have to go to Syria. New flavors are born from integration and what was once innovation is now tradition.
- CIBO, street artist & activist-
Social Commitment and Activism
CIBO combines complex street art works rich in messages and symbolism with fast art works or his personal recipe for urban guerrilla warfare. Public art interventions that often transform into mural performances aimed at countering fascism, hatred and social discrimination.
A modern and colorful resistance, which carries forward with a smile and which has contributed to making the CIBO street artist synonymous with Italian artistic excellence and a symbol of a social commitment which, through public art and street art, aims to to give something back to the community, countering the hatred that unfortunately increasingly permeates our society and the walls of our cities, taking away its power and transforming it into an ingredient of its special recipe for urban and social regeneration.
CIBO, through its particular form of activism, shows the world how big changes start from small things and how a “simple” thing like FOOD can really make a difference.