Just below the Vienna U-Bahn, and above the street, there are two new archangels shielding their eyes from us, possibly looking into one another’s.

“The only true voyage, the only bath in the Fountain of Youth, would be not to visit strange lands but to possess other eyes, to see the universe through the eyes of another, of a hundred others, to see the hundred universes that each of them sees, that each of them is; and this we do (with great artists); with artists like these we do really fly from star to star.”

Italian Street Artist Bifido tells us that this quote is part of the inspiration for his new collaborative piece that spreads its wings below the rumbling of rolling wheels in this busy city. The other inspiration is drawn from the experience of working for the first time with his painting partner, the Danish artist Jacoba Niepoort who adds the extending wings to Bifidos photorealistic searching figures.

“When I saw Jacoba’s work for the first time, I thought, ‘I absolutely have to work with this artist,’ ” he tells us, remarking on the intensity that he rarely finds in the world of Street Art. “It’s not just something decorative; it digs deeper, touching the most intimate and emotional part of people.”

The pair met at the Calle Libre Festival in Vienna this summer and decided that their first project together would examine the intimacy of human relationships. The experience has enabled them both to look at the same scenario with each other’s eyes, he says, and now passersby in Vienna can as well.

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