The seaside town of Rimini is the queen of Italy's Adriatic coast. Once a glamorous destination, as portrayed by local legendary film director Federico Fellini, it has developed into a massive holiday enterprise comprising a 15km sandy beach, seafront hotels and a plethora of nightclubs.
For Italians, Rimini also carries a cultural legacy that plies a fine line between nobility and bad taste. With this in mind, the town's mayor has invited Pierpaolo Ferrari and Maurizio Cattelan to drape the area with Toiletpaper irreverence. Curated by Maria Cristina Didero and unveiled across the city on 1 July, the pair present a portrait of the area's traditional holiday vibes, where food meets sensuality and fashion is combined with provocation and insanity.
Cattelan and Ferrari were commissioned by the city council to produce the eight piece series, printed on thousands of billboards in bright Toiletpaper colors, with ‘Saluti da Rimini’ ('Greetings from Rimini') typed across each oversized postcard.
Part advertising campaign, part public art exercise, the set of posters were selected from Toiletpaper’s archive to reflect the area’s contrasting realities, from its Roman history to the bodybuilders populating its beaches. The images include a humorous play on a lobster red sun-tan, lewd displays of virility, interesting applications of toothpaste and a variety of food-related constructions, all conceived in the magazine's inimitable style.
'This project is an extraordinary occasion to look at the city’s complexity through the eyes of Cattelan and Ferrari,' explains Didero, who worked closely with the pair to develop the project. 'They were able to portray Rimini's icons through their imagination, giving the city a new point of view on reality.'
With the curatorial assistance of Maria Cristina Didero, the pair selected provocative images from their archives
Over a thousand copies of the eight oversized postcards were affixed on billboards across the city
The pair present a portrait of the area's traditional holiday vibes, where food meets sensuality and fashion is combined with provocation and insanity
Part advertising campaign, part public art exercise, the set of posters are inscribed with the postcard-like legend 'Saluti da Rimini' ('Greetings from Rimini')
The images were chosen to reflect the area's contrasting realities, from its Roman history to the bodybuilders populating its beaches
Images include a humorous play on a lobster red sun-tan, lewd displays of virility, interesting applications of toothpaste and a variety of food-related constructions, all conceived in the magazine's inimitable style
‘They were able to portray Rimini’s icons through their imagination, giving the city a new point of view on reality,' says Didero
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