Street Art in Florence - E.T. and our strange world

Everyone remembers E.T., the extraterrestrial created by the American director Steven Spielberg in 1982. This drawing stuck on the wood of a door seems to us very timely. We can imagine that E.T. is back and wants to find the nice children who saved him and helped him to go home, but he can't find them anymore. He sees a changed world that he doesn't know, absurd for him. The men all wear a strange mask that does not allow them to be recognized ... a new religion? When they talk you don't understand anything. Some even have a plastic visor in addition to the mask. Others wear white plastic overalls with gloves. Everyone stays away from each other and constantly washes his hands with strange sticky substances. Many people no longer go to work, they spend their days at home in front of the computer, even the students. E.T.  doesn't understand. How can he find his friends, who have surely grown up, if they are all masked? He tries to lower the mask to those he meets, but they are terrified, they run away and call the police, it is not allowed! Poor E.T., he will have to go empty-handed, flee this incomprehensible world. Some other time then. Florence, via dell’Olmo.

The author of this artwork is the famous Street Art artist who signs himself Blub and it is part of his series "Art knows how to swim", in which famous people are represented with masks or diving glasses, underwater. This is the meaning of his art in his own words, taken from an interview: "Although we may find ourselves in a sea of difficulties, in life we always have the resources to learn to swim. Art is one of these resources, water is my element. Life is born from water, it is the hidden side of matter. When you are immersed, the instant stops and there is no weight, while thoughts flow into a suspended dimension. For this, I propose the characters who have transmitted an example of greatness able to survive even today, right under the water, without time". The interview, done by Mara Auricchio, is taken from the website www.ilChaos.com