MAXXI, Rome – The Eden series by Marcello Lo Giudice (Taormina, 1957) was exhibited until June 12, 2017. These large canvases open like windows onto parallel worlds, distant planets, desolate landscapes made of pure pigments and inspired by the invisible sounds of the universe. With the Eden series, Lo Giudice presents a space that is both empty and full: through the luminescence of colors, he tells of an uninhabited territory that exists thanks to its own chromatic essence. His paintings are non-places where anything can happen, a void before the beginning, before birth, like the white exalted by Kandinsky. Abstraction is precisely the artist’s starting point, as he states: «Abstraction is the most absolute nothingness, like a black hole in the universe, there are no more boundaries, nor forms of reality, and it’s all about going straight beyond reality, an outrageous exploration to capture the sounds and colors of the universe, horizons of nebulas, and borders between the real and unreal. In short, with abstraction, one touches the mystery of the invisible».
Marcello Lo Giudice, “Yellow Sun”, 2015. Detail. Oil and pigments on canvas. 100×100 cm. ph. by G. Russo
The result is incredible, emerging uniquely from each monochrome: despite the same materials being used, each color has its own personality, its own structure, and weight. Each color is treated as an individual, and the combination of these individuals creates an explosion of dazzling light, as if on the day of the Big Bang. Lo Giudice is a gestural painter, generous with his use of materials, with which he maintains an intimate relationship. He applies color with force, in a creative act born from Informalism:«For me, Informalism plays a fundamental role, — explained Lo Giudice — because you abandon forms and figures, which, with their defined lines and contours, somewhat limit the painter’s creative imagination». However, unlike the masters of the past such as Dubuffet and Klein, who inspire him, Lo Giudice returns to figuration when, through erosions, abrasions, and traces of light, he gives his works a narrative quality. Thus, ultramarine blue tells of ocean ridges and vast seas, yellow becomes sun-scorched earth, and the fiery reds and blacks evoke lava flows and volcanic craters.
Marcello Lo Giudice, “Orange Vulcano”, 2017. Detail. Oil and pigments on canvas. 200×230 cm. ph. by G. Russo
Lo Giudice’s work owes much to his studies in geology, which led him to discover wonderful chromatic details under the microscope. This expertise, combined with his artistic technique, earned him the title of Artist for the Monaco Red Cross in 2013. The exhibition, supported by the Prince Albert Foundation, highlights the artist’s love for planet Earth and its natural giants, as well as his tireless fight for environmental preservation. For several years, he has been engaged in the Save Mediterranean Sea project, alongside Prince Albert II of Monaco, his friend and great admirer. Lo Giudice’s translation of remote geological landscapes into painting, along with his passion for matter and the history of the blue planet, makes him a great “telluric” artist, as defined by critic Pierre Restany. However, the cry of anguish over the progressive loss of blue, replaced by advancing grayness, also emerges in his Totems series, which addresses the theme of war. The artist began working on the Totems between the late 1980s and early 1990s. The approach to these works is painful: they are slashed mattresses, emptied of all softness, reflecting the horror of conflicts, like traces of a gutted and abandoned humanity.
Marcello Lo Giudice, “Eden Blu”, 2015. Detail. Oil and pigments on canvas. 200×230 cm. ph. by G. Russo
The anguish over bombings on civilians and the violation of domestic spaces pushed Lo Giudice to create a testimony of this barbarity. Through his art, he has built an altar to commemorate and honor the victims. In the work on display, titled Dal cantico delle creature (2017), only the metal springs remain, covered by thousands of golden bees, painted with a baroque style that traces back to the artist’s insular origins. Alongside the tragedy of bombs, squalor, and impoverishment, the Eden works are places of peace and happiness. In a recent interview, the artist shared: «I paint Edens because today we live amid so many wars and so much destruction, and we are all so wounded by life, but we don’t react with the courage we should. Today’s society is the result of unbridled hedonism, with few ideals and moral values. I paint Edens because, through painting, I want to bring peace, happiness, and beauty». All of this is Marcello Lo Giudice’s painting.
Info:
Marcello Lo Giudice. Eden, pianeti lontani.
11/05/2017 – 12/06/2017
Corner D, MAXXI – Museo Nazionale delle arti del XXI Secolo
Via Guido Reni, 4/a Roma
maxxi.art
Giulia Russo is an author and digital editorial assistant for Juliet, with whom she has collaborated since 2017. More recently she has been a contributing editor on cultural themes for various magazines, with critical insights, dedicated to emerging artists and the new frontiers of contemporaneity. Graduated in Art History at La Sapienza University of Rome, she specialized in Visual Cultures and curatorial practices at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. Based in Milan, with some fleeting forays into Tiber, she loves listening to stories that she occasionally rewrites
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