Hube "Non Ho Mai Imparato"

Hube’s work is a photographic narrative set in a transfigured, anti-metaphysical Rome—far from both the tourist-gentrified city center and the romanticized outskirts. Instead, it moves through a periphery that is more anthropological than geographical: the periphery of those who never learned the rules of the game, who didn’t turn youthful rebellion into a steady job, who didn’t give in to the blackmail of time, and who never made their art a pastime for the bored bourgeoisie or another form of moralism. An icon in the world of bombing, Hube has become a fragment of urban language, on par with phrases like “Forza Roma” or “God exists”: an anonymous yet deeply personal mark, repeated wildly, obsessively, until it invades the entire landscape—overpasses, ring roads, buildings, bus shelters, trams, buses, bicycles, and garbage bins. Non ho mai imparato (“I Never Learned”) is the visual manifesto of this twenty-year street story, with its impossible protagonists, the last remnants of the '90s—years when writing your name on a wall was still a political act, a way of reclaiming metropolitan space, a form of recognition. And today, this story renews its challenge to those who, instead, chose to learn. But learning how to live in the world—if the world is still a horrible place—isn’t that the worst kind of sentence? About Hube: Hube was born in Rome in 1982. He is a multifaceted artist, active in the fields of rap music, writing, photography, and graffiti. Raised in Rome, he began as a writer in the crew “Savage Boys.” During the 1990s, he moved between graffiti, the urban outskirts, rap culture, and addiction. In the following years, he became part of the music collective “Brokenspeakers,” alongside Lucci, Coez, Nicco, and Franz. In 2020, he published his first book, 33, with Sperling & Kupfer—a memoir that intertwines various lived experiences (“I died 33 times… 33 were the circles I walked through”). He presents himself as Marco Ubertini to distinguish this identity from that of his graffiti persona. Active in photography and street photography, he collaborated with artist Lucamaleonte on the editorial project Colla 00139 (2023), documenting the most authentic and urban side of Rome. He has exhibited and sold printed works and Polaroid pieces, for example at Bertolami Fine Art. Each of his projects is driven by the idea of writing and personal storytelling as an act of resistance against oblivion and marginality, offering an urban narrative that is raw and unfiltered.