Malleus Rock art

About me:

Malleus is an artistic collective devoted to rock music and to its historical image inventory, born in Italy at the beginning of the new century. Music and drawing are the main coordinates of a world where the trio takes its first steps, realizing record covers, fanzines and underground magazines' illustrations, images and logos for the web and also concert posters. Malleus is an omnivore creature. The iconography at the base of their work originates from a vast scenery including figurative arts, in particular Expressionism and Symbolism, Art Nouveau and Surrealism, Pop Art and Psychedelic Art, and also comics, photography, cinema and literature. All these ingredients blend in with the main element of their poetics; that is the female form, the primordial goddess, from whom everything comes. Even in its own small way, Malleus represents an anachronistic and non-logical exception, in a country that seems to have put aside child dreams, creativity and cultural independence which are suffocated by a media subculture that infects every stratum of society from above. At the end of 2002, the trio of Malleus, printing their first handmade silkscreen, take the critical step towards a walk that will make them known as one of the most remarkable realities in the Poster Art scene of today. Through the handprinted silkscreen, a simple gigposter turns into something different and particular. Every copy is unrepeatable, a pop piece made through real physical effort, on the precious papers of Italian tradition. Its layers of colours pulsate and flutter in the light like organic matter. At the end of 2008 Malleus realized "The Hammer of God", a book displaying the more than 150 silkscreen posters realized by the art collective for the most diverse artists and bands in the first 5 years of activity. The Hammer of God" is commented by artists, collectors and friends including Paul Grushkin and Dennis King (The Art of Rock and the Art of Modern Rock), Firehouse, David Tibet (Current 93), Jermaine Rogers, Alan Forbes, Justine Hampton, Amanda Palmer (Dresden Dolls), Al Cisneros (Om), Brant Bjork, and many more. Malleus has been on tour in the USA promoting the book at the end of 2008, with shows in Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles and Denver. Several Malleus' artworks have been displayed in various collective and individual art shows, and have been included in "Art of Modern Rock", the gig poster gospel by Paul Grushkin and Dennis King, in “Art of Modern Rock: Mini #1 A-Z” and “Art of Modern Rock: Mini #2 Poster Girls” by Dennis king, in "Swag posters" by Judith Salavetz and in "A fistful of Rock'n'Roll" by Sal Canzonieri.

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