The Aesthetics of the Social Media

A graduate of Goldsmiths College of London, Simone Monsi (1988) is an emerging artist on the international scene of contemporary art.

Since a few years, Monsi is researching Internet as a platform for contemporary communication. His artworks stand out for their newness as well as for the pop colours, shapes, and images that are typical of the social media.

The Layout

The catalogue of the exhibition ‘New Blabs on Clouds and Planes’ is the second of those designed in 2018 for the art shows curated by UNA for Milan’s Spazio Leonardo.

The compositional structure of the catalogue is similar to those developed for the previous publications, but the layout has been redefined according to the new contents.

The images, in particular, are composed in a way that is most appropriate to the horizontal format, rather than the vertical format used for previous catalogues.

Text and Images

The photographs follow each other in an exact rhythmic sequence that was carefully studied together with the artist in order to communicate the experience of the exhibition in the most clear and faithful way possible.

The pages of text also enhance the subject of the exhibition through a series of WhatsApp messages, framed in the typical green and grey bubbles that are evocative of social media and the digital communication.

The Cover

The cover is characterised by the sunset colours which are typical of Monsi’s artworks and also by the contrast between the high density ink and the softness of the white paper.

On the inside, it shows two details from one of the artworks—an airplane that is taking-off and a heart. The two images respectively stand for the starting of a journey, as a symbol for the beginning of the reading experience, and the joy felt at the end of the journey, as a symbol for the accomplishment of that experience.

Clarity and Elegance

The catalogue was an integral part of the exhibition and effectively enhanced the work of the artist through a graphic interpretation that is consistent with the iconography of social media and typical to the work of Monsi.

—Nicola-Matteo Munari