By Aldo Premoli
Vernissage 17/07/2020 h 19.00 - Finissage 30/08/2020 h 19.00 TINA DI LORENZO THEATER, NOTO - SYRACUSE
On display works by:
Davide Bramante, Stefano Cumia, Francesco De Grandi, Emanuele Giuffrida, Giovanni Iudice, Francesco Lauretta, Loredana Longo, Ignazio Mortellaro, Filippo La Vaccara, William Marc Zanghi. Sound intervention by Michele Spadaro
The best expression of Sicilian contemporary art has met at the theater. To be exact, at the Tina Di Lorenzo di Noto which for the first time, in its 150-year history, hosts an exhibition. Not in the foyer, as often happens in Italy and beyond, but in the stalls, on stage and in all other spaces, among red velvets and gilded stuccos of a splendid example of late nineteenth century architecture.
The curator of the exhibition also urged a sound intervention by the sound engineer Michele Spadaro, the youngest of an extraordinary patrol of all Sicilian artists, even if only a few residents on the island. Synaesthesia is one of the favorite aspects in the dialogue between the arts and with a theater originally created to host lyrical music, it fits perfectly.
However the other artists here are exclusively visual artists, all colleagues and friends of Davide Bramante who is not new to such initiatives. Davide Bramante confirms it: «I have always surrounded myself, instinctively, without any planning or strategy, of artists who have my same dreams, the same desires and in the end also the same origin. Artists who have tasted the same perfumes of our land. It was then easy, and basically nice, to meet again, outside the island, those who like me, one step a day, every day, went on. I met them in galleries and art fairs and in debates all over the world ... we started in a thousand but now we are far fewer. "
Adds the curator Aldo Premoli: «What Davide Bramante describes is the profile of a generation. Some of them "left" the island: this is the case of Francesco Lauretta (Venice, then Turin and then Florence); Stefano Cumia and Filippo La Vaccara (Milan); Loredana Longo who divides herself between Milan and Catania; Davide Bramante himself who returned from Turin to Syracuse; Francesco De Grandi who travels a lot but is in Palermo exactly like William Marc Zanghi and Ignazio Mortellaro; Giovanni Iudice and Emanuele Giuffrida who chose to gravitate respectively to Gela and Ragusa ... even Michele Spadaro, the young sound designer moved to London to return as soon as possible to Aci Castello ".
What do they exhibit in this exhibition? Davide Bramante, an artist who also chose the photographic medium as an expressive medium summarizes the collected works as follows: «There is still a lot of painting in Sicily, a medium to which the funeral was held several times, from many sides, but which on the contrary, it is alive and well. After Lucio Fontana, who had programmatically "pierced the ball", infinite pages were written about the death of the painting ... but no, around that ball maybe bigger, maybe smaller, oval or long, an infinite series of 'games.
«Which does not mean - continues Aldo Premoli - that Davide Bramante, Ignazio Mortellaro or Loredana Longo should be considered out of context here. In reverse. They use media other than painting but do not oppose it as had happened in the sixties with poor art or in the seventies with its strong ideological components. They do not even draw back in front of his return pervaded by strong decorative components typical of the Eighties. Just like none of them, painter or other, seems to be interested in ostentation, cynicism, the mockery of the nineties. In none of the artists exhibited here is fiction and ultimately conservatism and restoration. This generation cares little about conforming to this or that cliché imposed by the fashion of the moment. Contemporary art, when it is truly art and does not wink at the most sinister trade, on the contrary goes beyond fashions.
Contemporary art, when it is truly art and does not wink at the most sinister trade, on the contrary goes beyond fashions. It is not an antidote to the world's troubles, it is not a drug and almost always produces no consolation. This generation of artists is mainly interested in doing, much less commenting or celebrating. However, there is a common path and it has the desire to be able to live (yes exactly to "live") with one's own art. This is not always taken for granted, indeed always difficult if you want to remain coherent with your work, if you are not inclined to compromise and ruffianism with which the so-called "art world" is full. Here these "New Sicilians" are certainly (also) united by this ».
Davide Bramante underlines: «Fortunately artists don't need a great availability of material things to be happy. Instead, they always need to wake up and start planning every day. In front of a canvas, a pile of clay, a sheet or any other material they have at their disposal ".
"In this they are special - highlights Aldo Premoli - and also a little crazy. Imagine what it means to go in search of a new project every day to be able to breathe? So-called "middle generations" exist in the history of art and culture in general. They are the ones that struggle the most, sometimes they are crushed by traumatic events (economic crises, political conflicts, pandemics, changes in geographical horizons) and yet they manage to carry out surprising works, and have the courage to question their previous research. Allow me a final quote. James Baldwin in "Next time the fire" writes: "It is up to free men to learn the nature of change, and to be able and willing to change. I am not speaking of the change taking place on the surface, but of what takes place deep down. Change in the sense of renewal, therefore, which however becomes impossible if constant things are believed that are not: security, for example, or money or power. To believe it is to cling to chimeras, from which one can only be deceived, so that any hope - and any possibility - of freedom disappears. " If the artists, the real ones, don't do it, then nobody can do it ».
“Foyer Davide Bramante and friends. The new Sicilians "can be visited free of charge every day from 10 to 13 and from 15 to 18 until Monday 7 September.
Event supported by Associazione Mediterraneo Sicilia Europa