Curated by Paola Aloisio and Gian Lorenzo Bernini
Opening May 27, 2021 at 3:00 pm
27-28-29 May from 15:00 to 22:00
Entrance by reservation:
ufficio@b-artroma.com
3274582911 | 334 715 8866
“The image is in itself violent because it immediately imposes itself with its mere presence, in all its truth – says the French philosopher Jean-Luc Nancy – nothing is explained, nothing is said, it is the strength of image that communicates […] I remain in front of the image and it is up to me to take up this violence and analyze it, because for example, the violence of the image is not at all the same as the image of violence “
(J-L. Nancy, Abbas Kiarostami. Evidence of the film, Rome 2004, pp. 99-100).
Leuzzi does not treasure this lesson, because he has never read Nancy, but he arrives, through another path, not philosophical but artistic, concrete, personal, to images of intimate, effective, violence. Not so much for what they themselves represent but for what they evoke. “[…] there is a violence of the image that can exist even in an extremely sweet, harmless image, like the image of a kiss in a love movie; a very close-up, for example, I believe is always violent ”(J-L. Nancy, op. cit., p. 99).
B-ART, the new gallery born in Trastevere thanks to the initiative of two very young entrepreneurs, is pleased to host Mirko Leuzzi’s first solo show.
Sixteen oil paintings, mostly portraits of girls, which evoke uncontrolled restlessness and reveal how the actions of an individual can only be violent towards the other, especially when it comes to romantic relationships.
This is what Leuzzi wonders about, about the emotional wounds we cause to others without being aware of it, about the inability to find a solution in others and about the loss that causes the end of a relationship.
The only representation of violence itself is found in Lo Stupro al Pollaio, where Leuzzi brings back his impression on a national news event, which took place in 2019. Here too, what is violent, however, is not the image itself. , but the reality it represents.
Leuzzi imprints his models on canvas as if they were an interior photograph that reveals the mood of the subject through backgrounds animated by vivid colors or everyday objects, in which the gestures and positions of the body are seductive and repulsive.
Deprived of three-dimensionality and lightened by the disturbance of details, his paintings observe you in search of a silent dialogue. Not surprisingly, the only work in which no gaze is turned to us, as if there was nothing communicable, is precisely the large canvas of Lo Stupro al Pollaio.
The deformed features, the dense and clear pictorial matter and a fixity of the faces that recalls the hieratic Byzantine icons are the characteristics of the work of Leuzzi, who does not define himself as an artist but rather an observer.
Take Care of Yourself, is the name of this promising observer’s first solo show.
Although it is a formal sentence, said sincerely it implies an intense past relationship.
In a certain sense, it’s the cure that we weren’t able to have before. By being a positive mantra that can be repeated, it establishes peace, and can therefore save us.
WORKS EXHIBITED
Praise to the New Femininity, 80 x 90 cm, oil on canvas
Dina, 60 x 50 cm, oil on canvas
Rape at the Chicken Coop, 161 x 200 cm, oil on canvas
Fear of Having Fear, 50 x 35 cm, oil on canvas
Neighbor, 50 x 35 cm, oil on canvas
This Is Not Just About You, 35 x 50 cm, oil on canvas
The Past, 50 x 35 cm, oil on canvas
Tiziana’s Masks, 50 x 35 cm, oil on canvas
Bianca Hirata, 50 x 35 cm, oil on canvas
I don’t love you anymore, 70 x 80 cm, oil on canvas
I don’t know when you exist and if you can die or if I’m alive, 70 x 80 cm, oil on canvas
The Sensitivity of Beatrice, 80 x 70 cm, oil on canvas
Beware of My Delicacy, 70 x 80 cm, oil on canvas
You violate my whole life, 70 x 80 cm, oil on canvas
