Reprinted from the original review.

Spanning twelve years of studio and mural work, public interventions, installations, and collaborations, Los cimientos de la armonía y de la invención is Escif’s most comprehensive book to date, and possibly his most deliberate. At 600 pages, this massive, clothbound volume is both an archive and a slow meditation, mirroring the artist’s own evolution from a clever, idea-driven street painter into a conceptual provocateur whose understated gestures leave wide, lingering ripples of interpretation. Drawing its title from Vivaldi’s Il cimento dell’armonia e dell’invenzione, the book positions Escif’s art as both experiment and orchestration—a counterpoint of humor and grief, silence and confrontation, metaphor and material.

Escif’s reputation rests on his ability to place subtle yet impactful works into public space—a painted ladder rising to a window, a cracked phone on a corner facade, a series of sleeping figures mapped across city rooftops. Based in Valencia, Escif began his graffiti practice around 1996–1997 and started developing his public mural and intervention work in the early 2000s; this period overlaps with peers like Hyuro and SAM3 who were also gaining recognition in Spain. He soon distinguished himself with minimalist forms and sharp, socially aware narratives. Escif’s visual language borrows from signage, illustration, and protest banners, but his tone is often that of a haiku or fabled tale: distilled, ambiguous, gently subversive.

A recurring theme is rupture—between humans and the natural world, between economies and ethics, between surfaces and what lies beneath.

Text Steven P. Harrington & Jaime Rojo     Fotos Eveline Wilson

Title: ECIF: Los Cimientos De La Armonia Y De La Invencion
Published: Self-Published. 2024
Author: ECIF
Language: Spanish

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