ROOM 2 – IN THE LIVING ROOM
On the fireplace, a neoclassical style bust made by Samorì, sculpted from a block of onyx highly compromised by the natural impurities of the stone. The sculpture is constructed, therefore, by taking away parts of the material growing around a void. Opposite, with a series of small framed works, the artist presents some variations on two faces by the painter Hans Memling, tormented by the point of a burin, by the path of a bed bug through wet paint or partially hidden by the removal of the paint layer, which evokes the presence of a burqa. But the living room is also the location of a tribute to Giovanni Testori, and not just thanks to the painting on copper, a copy of one of two Davids by Tanzio da Varallo, an artist rediscovered by Testori and one of his favourites. In fact, here the exhibition’s second protagonist enters the scene, with Matteo Fato’s triple portrait of Testori and his Library, built around the easel that belonged to the writer-painter. Here the wooden material, always prominent in Fato’s work, creates an apparently unitary block, evoking the piles of books that surrounded Testori, and is used to hold a sole tome that has been completely transformed by paint. In a total fusion of colour and words, another book belonging to Testori is pressed onto the still fresh portrait, so as to absorb the features of the face next to it, in a process that evokes a sinopia, the Shroud or the Veil of Veronica.
THE ARTWORKS
Nicola Samorì, Onichina (madremacchia), 2017/18, Mexican onyx
Nicola Samorì, Testa con lacrima, 2017, oil on panel, AmC Collezione Coppola, Courtesy Monitor, Rome/Lisbon
Nicola Samorì, Madonna dello zucchero, 2016, oil on panel, AmC Collezione Coppola, Vicenza, Courtesy Monitor, Rome/Lisbon
Nicola Samorì, Traspirazione della Vergine, 2016, oil on panel, AmC Collezione Coppola, Vicenza, Courtesy Monitor, Rome/Lisbon
Nicola Samorì, Pestante, 2018, oil on copper, Courtesy Monitor, Rome/Lisbon
Matteo Fato, Il fatalista senza padrone (1923 – 1993), 2018, oil on linen, oil on book glued with pigment preparation, plywood transport case, oil on book glued with pigment preparation, plywood pedestal, Courtesy of the Artist and Galleria Michela Rizzo, Venice
Posted on: 15 November 2021, by : Alessandro Ulleri