CONDOTTO48, located in Torre Angela, Rome, is an artist-run space born in 2021 from the idea of five young artists, Verdiana Bove, Francesca Romana Cicia, Luca Di Terlizzi, Emanuele Fasciani, Caterina Sammartino, who met at different times and circumstances but who shared the need, after the pandemic, to give substance to their desire to create.

The first exhibition, entitled Il giorno più lungo (The longest day), has been inaugurated on June 21^st, 2021, with the curatorial support of Riccardo Paris, who has been collaborating constantly since then. During 2021 the studio visit entitled CURRY ON was carried out and in December the space has participated in the Materia Nova exhibition, at the GAM – Galleria d’Arte Moderna, in Rome, which involved young artistic realities born in different districts of the capital. Starting from 2022, the IPSE DIXIT project began, whose the central theme is the concept of truth, with the aim of questioning the tools through which we usually evaluate the veracity of the information with which we come into contact. The project, divided into three acts, has seen numerous collaborations with artists and external personalities.

Saturday, June 25^th has been inaugurated IPSE DIXIT #3. – THE NARCISSISTIC COEXISTENCE OF ATTENTION, a solo exhibition by Luca Baioni (Milan, 1984) created in collaboration with the Turin artist-run space Mucho Mas!, with the aim of highlighting the importance of the origin of the information on which we base our concept of truth andto point out its power and, at the same time, its darker side,  the corruptible and manipulable one. Within the different spaces of CONDOTTO48, among the works of the five Roman artists, a continuous, apathetic, grotesque voice makes its way: it is the artistic contribution of Luca Baioni, who tries to drag the observer-listener into a dimension that has the same characteristics of human life, an incomprehensible set of overlapping and mixed sensations. The grotesque and the violent, strongly present in the words spoken in the series of seven audios entitled IL PIANETA TERRA DOPO LA SODOMIA, are the elements that most of all can express the feelings of terror deriving from being part of an experience that submerges us, throws us into an irrevocable and uncontrollable chaos and makes us feel part of something incredibly greater and more complex than our single consciousness can process.

Here then the connections with the works of each artist become tangible and more evident. Entering the space, the works of Caterina Sammartino immediately catch the eye, to which the second audio is combined. The artist carries out a search for natural elements that transposed onto cotton, linen, hemp or paper supports. Often, after her own intervention of research for a connection with nature and the elaboration of an emotion, the artist, in a sense, steps aside and leaves room for nature to act independently on the canvas, in order to let the artwork to follow its course. «It is the search, even tragic, for a finite being, to come into contact with the infinite».

The route then continues towards the area where Francesca Romana Cicia works; the artist, intrigued by the unconscious and by how what the human learns can be removed or re-emerge after a long time, began her research by creating artworks inspired by the intertwining of the nervous system, and then moved on subjects linked to geographical paths and networks, aesthetically and conceptually similar to the system of neurons as they constitute places in which to get lost, intertwining of ways and connections. Afterwards, Luca Di Terlizzi explores the roots of humanity by combining ancestral elements that he finds to be in common between different civilizations. In the artworks we find figurative elements combined with abstract gestures. One series in particular recalls ancient cave paintings and, through all the works, it is possible to retrace the gestures of the human being that, as in a circle, have always been repeated, and again.

The last two spaces are of Verdiana Bove and Emanuele Fasciani. The first one deals, through painting, with the theme of personal memory: starting from a photograph taken by herself, often concerning family situations, she creates on canvas a work that traces the constructive lines of the original image, but with chromatic and figurative alterations. The result is a sort of dive into the artist’s memories, with warm colors that evoke the sense of fading of the past and with altered figures, barely recognizable. Finally, Emanuele Fasciani puts all of himself into the realization of his works, often concluded in a short time, so much is the strength and emotions that move and transport him during the act. His research turns to the exploration of unusual materials and techniques, both in a more abstract sense, with the identification of symbols and colors that refer to alchemical concepts of transformation of matter, and from a totally concrete point of view, with the use of fire that shapes waxes, coal and any other element present in the work. They are works that are transformed, that can change and that regenerate, reborning each time from themselves.

The audiovisual path ends in the project room inaugurated with the exhibition, in which the last audio is combined with the projection of a video, made by Luca Baioni himself and entitled ALFPC, whose images give the impression of having come out of the same story audible in the room: a stylistic alternation of modern and vintage clips that capture the observer’s gaze leading him to unknown and grotesque places.

Inside CONDOTTO48 we therefore witness the desire to make concrete and visible an aspect of life that concerns each of us: Luca Baioni brings to light the malaise generated by everything we do not know and that continues to get out of hand, relating, in every corner of the space, with the practical will, expressed in different ways by the five artists,  to understand this unknown, to be part of it, to give it a name and to stop it in time. The choice of CONDOTTO48 as the place of placement of the audios is not accidental, but makes the sensations described above even more tangible, as a place where the artists continue to work every day; therefore, if we can define the connection between the audios and the artworks as close, the one between the audios and the continuous change of the environment in which they are located is even tighter. The exhibition, open until July 23^rd, will offer a different look to the observer every day.

Info:

Various artists, IPSE DIXIT #3. – THE NARCISSISTIC COEXISTENCE OF ATTENTION
CONDOTTO48
via Carlantonio Grue 48, 00133 Roma