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This paper focuses on the presentation of some of the main critical reflections concerning the current debate about conservation and restoration of contemporary murals in the Street and Urban Art field. More and more, the operations thought of for this kind of wall paintings are connected to the concept of preventive conservation or some actions with the aim of reducing the future deterioration linked to the outdoor context. The idea of protecting urban and street murals arises from two principal issues: on one hand, the (not yet) official, but social, recognition of them as works of art and beloved icons in the communities—or better “testimonies which spread the values of civilization” (definition of Cultural Heritage) from the last decades of the XX century to nowadays—and, on the other hand, the necessity of finding a way to preserve their artistic messages in the ephemeral urban context. In fact, developing a correct plan for the conservation and restoration of these works of art located in the outdoor context needs to consider—more than ever—the strict relationship between their materials, their environment, and even their viewer. This fragile axiom is strictly linked to the law of the street, where all the decay processes are, often, unpredictable. At the moment, the ICR’s (The Istituto Centrale per il Restauro) research in this field is focused on a work in progress project to develop some trials and tests with innovative materials for their preservation and a common glossary to outline particular forms of damaging in murals often based on “plastic on a wall”. The final aim could be to define institutional guidelines for the preservation of urban and street contemporary mural paintings in a perspective of a “share for care” conservative program.

This paper focuses on the reintegration treatments studied for a contemporary mural painting, which was designed and carried out by the Italian artist Giuseppe Capogrossi in 1954. This forgotten masterpiece is located on the ceilings of the main double staircase at the entrance of the Airone, an ex-cinema theatre in Rome, which was designed and planned during the Fifties by the famous architects Adalberto Libera, Eugenio Montuori and by the engineer Leo Calini. After a brief introduction based on the conservation history of the building and on the painting itself, it will be described criteria and limits in the reintegration process of a sample area of this highly degraded polyvinyl acetate (PVAc) based mural. The materials selected in the reintegration project, based on natural polymers and synthetic polymers, will be theoretically compared with one another and it will be explained why some of these could be appropriate and effective, while others could not chromatically work in this particular case.

This paper focuses on critical and analytical approaches behind the reintegration process in the conservation project of two contemporary mural paintings designed by Antonio Carena and located in the outdoor contemporary museum of Piscina in Italy. Moreover, there will be evaluated materials and techniques applied, in this selected case study, where contemporary criteria on chromatic reintegration, still connected to a case by case situation, confirm that the aesthetic presentation of a work of art is the phase of the restoration in which the exquisitely critical nature of the intervention is best expressed, since it implies a scientific plan at the basis and the objective critical judgment of the operator which is called to interpret some formal, visual and historical values of the work of art, acting on them. Finally, there will be analysed theoretical and technical methodologies to explain how scientific criteria, which are also objective and based on the visual perception of colour by the human psyche and its consequent aesthetic elaboration, passes through a scientific-critique interpretation of the constituent materials in the work of art.

This paper focuses on the presentation of a part of the main thematic data documenting the pathologies and the degradation problems of a contemporary mural painting, which was designed and carried out by the italian artist Giuseppe Capogrossi in 1954. This forgotten masterpiece is developed on the ceilings of the main double stairscase at the entrance of the Airone, an ex-cinema-theatre in Rome (Italy). In time, the original project was completely damaged and now the Airone cinema is abandoned since 1999; the decoration, strictly connected to the function of the original project, has been completely covered by synthetic coatings. The documentation of the observed pathologies and the original materials of the lower ceiling takes place during a restoration project in 2015-2016 and was accomplished by utilizing different technologies in order to facilitate the collecting of the main data within several graphic thematic tables. The challenge of this documentation was to create a contact point, and perhaps also a contamination, between the practices of CAD graphic documentation, restoration and GIS technology. THE CAPOGROSSI WALL PAINTING AT THEAIRONE EX CINEMA-THEATRE Introduction: conservation historyThe wall painting is developed on the ceilings of the main double stairscase at the entrance of the Airone, an ex-cinematheatre in Rome which is situated seven meters below the street level and thus, in a conservation way, can be associated to the typology of the hypogeum. The building, located inside a central court enclosed by five blocks of flats, was commissioned by a public corporation and was designed and planned during the Fifties by the famous architects Adalberto Libera, Eugenio Montuori and by the engineer Leo Calini (Calandra 1956, Zevi 1956, Aloi 1958, Montuori 1981, Garofalo and Veresane 1989, Bonavita 2003, Pellicano 2007. During that period, Capogrossi had already matured a visual vocabulary of irregular comb or fork-shaped signs (Bolpagni, 2013). This particular painting was developed on the basis of the architects' plans, even though it could be linked to the Informal artistic movement. As observed during the restoration project, and as the old surveyor of the time described, the abstract geometric style of the painting -which is made of a graphic and modular repetition of brilliant and "pop"colours -was connected together by utilizing modular elements onto the walls. Overall, in line with the architectural plan, the painting recalls the imagery of a large crowd flowing inside the cinema, their countless eyes watching around. In time, the Airone cinema lost its identity and became in order: a ballroom, a nightclub, a discotheque and eventually a strip club. The original project was twisted, transformed and damaged and the decoration -strictly connected to its function -has been completely covered by synthetic coatings first due to the water ingress and then due to the changing use of the building for different purposes; nine layers (De Cesare et al. 2015) developed over the upper ceiling of the...