Lorenzo Marini’s SquareType Invades Siena’s Piazza del Campo

On September 1, 2021, at 5 PM, artist Lorenzo Marini will install 35 rubber circles painted with colorful letters on the ground of Piazza del Campo in Siena, Italy, as part of a collective happening titled SquareType. The work, curated by Luca Beatrice, is an extension of Marini’s ongoing exhibition Di segni e di sogni at the Santa Maria della Scala museum complex in Siena, which runs until October 20, 2021. Marini, born in Monselice in 1958, is a former advertising professional who now works between Milan, Los Angeles, and New York. He founded the Manifesto per la liberazione delle lettere, becoming a leading figure in a new artistic movement that liberates letters from rigid alphabets. The SquareType installation features a giant disassembled keyboard where letters are placed randomly, inviting the public to sit on them, hug them, or take selfies. Marini describes the work as celebrating the intrinsic beauty of each sign rather than uniting words into sentences. The event aims to make art popular and horizontal, engaging the city and its inhabitants.