On February 5th at 16.00, the M-Cube Foundation arrives at BOOMING with Fabrizio Modina, Emanuela Zilio and Italo from “AnimeTeaTime”.
Although the narration of the historical period that belongs to us – a period of time that starts from the early Twentieth Century to arrive up to today – finds expression in specific, powerful and penetrating cultural forms such as “Pop Culture”, only recently critics, researchers and curators have recognized the historical importance of these languages, artistic and sociological at the same time, economic and cultural assets, attributing to them the more appropriate term of “Modern Mythology”.
The characters and universes generated by comics, books, cinema, television, video games have become easy and powerful symbols of the concept of protection and justice, keepers of a cultural path of myths that has united the world for millennia. Hercules, Perseus, Arthur and the samurai have turned into paladins in cloaks and tights, giant robots, aliens, warrior princesses, knights riding dragons: a fantastic pantheon that blends perfectly with the contemporary exaltation of the role-model seen through sports champions, rock stars, fashion legends and movie stars, just think of the iconic caliber of names such as David Bowie, Marilyn Monroe, Coco Chanel, Diego Armando Maradona.
It follows the birth of a phenomenon of “popular collecting” which, generated as a simple hobby, has rapidly evolved into “valuable cultural value” in Italy as in the whole world.
Toys, posters, books, records, memorabilia, vintage clothing and technology have become the subjects of a new expression of collecting, poised between art, design and modernism; “works” that have stimulated the flowering of an international market and capable of reaching very high quotations by virtue of their evocative and narrative power of a time that is apparently present but which is increasingly turning to the past. It is therefore not surprising that a first issue of the “Action Comics” comic, in which Superman made his appearance in 1938, is now auctioned for almost three million euros and that for even higher prices are sold the cars of James Bond, the guitars of Jimi Hendrix and the first clothes of Christian Dior. “Star Wars” action figures, “Pokémon” pack of cards, Elvis’ vinyl record or the cartridge of the first “Super Mario” video game, cease to be objects of mass production for children and mass market to transform (especially if in their intact packaging) in Holy Grails to be exhibited and in which to invest, in consideration of an evaluation perspective that tends exponentially more and more upwards.