Introduction. Street Art: Iconoclasm and Institutionalization

On the night of May 12, 2016 the street artist Blu, armed with a roller and some grey paint, set out to paint over all the works he had done in the city of Bologna. In this intent, the following day also, he was helped by activists from the community centers, his own collaborators and ordinary citizens united in an informal community that upheld his cause. Many others gathered either to celebrate this rite of destruction or to complain in disbelief, but in any case, to watch as it happened. Attention centered particularly on #OccupyMordor, a large mural that dominated the XM24 (an occupied social community center in the Bolognina district) which had previously been a focus when citizens mobilized to protect it from new building projects that envisaged the destruction of the building (July 2013).