Percorsi

Introduction

With the title Percorsi, a selection of works by contemporary authors is presented at the Galleria dello Scudo, chosen to document the different directions of expressive research from the 1970s to the most recent results. The exhibition opening with a room dedicated to Giuseppe Gallo, dominated by the large painting Mediterraneo executed in 2021, vibrant in the constellation of polychrome inserts against the ultramarine blue background. Alongside it are smaller paintings, in which the artist re-proposes the peculiar repertoire of images and figurative ideas.

Nunzio's sculpture, Secco from 1987, in burnt wood with applications of red pigment and lead, is a rare testimony of his language in the decade marked by important awards, such as the award for best young artist in 1986 at the LXII Venice Biennale .

The large canvases by Marco Gastini, executed between 2017 and 2018, are a tribute to the Turin master to whom the Galleria dello Scudo has dedicated two solo exhibitions in the past. Inserts in terracotta, applications of fabrics and papers with layers of Egyptian blue, attest to the artist's constant interest in unpublished materials and assemblages.

By Eliseo Mattiacci, one of the few contemporary sculptors always active in a constant dialogue with the elements of the universe and the forces that govern it, two works from 1976 have been selected, Sole e luna (Sun and Moon) and Notte e giorno (Day and Night). The conceptual vein that inspires his first phase comes from a reflection on the passage of time and from the suggestions that the alternation of light and darkness, light and dark can generate in the imagination of a man of our time.

The strong personality of Giuseppe Spagnulo is represented here by some painted, or rather "sculpted" works on paper. Sands of volcanic origin, iron oxides, coal, amalgamate in impulses and shots often enhanced by cadmium red, ready to tear apart the integrity of the violated, perforated, torn surfaces, in which it is evident how the formative action of the artist has reached “the intensity of a panic and shamanic liturgy” (Bruno Corà).

The multifaceted commitment with which Arcangelo Sassolino confronts the latent energies of matter, in redefining the multiple modes of interaction between mechanical systems and physical forces such as speed, pressure, gravity and tension, is now documented by a particular strand of his investigation: the cements. Born of the tearing of matter from a matrix, they respond to the intention of combining the two-dimensional with the three-dimensional, painting with sculpture, bringing with them the memory of an immaculate, perfectly smooth and shiny surface, an expression of resistance, fragility and finesse of a material that falls, even unknowingly, into our daily lives.