Data / Ora
Date(s) - 04/07/2024
6:30 pm - 9:00 pm
Luogo
Corals
Categorie
The exhibition entitled ‘The Essence of the Play’ with artists Luca Balottin, Federico Pisciotta, Salvatore Petrucino and RivaGLDF, curated by Greta Zuccali, opens on Thursday 4 July at the Corals exhibition space.
The game as a fundamental component of human culture is the central theme of this new exhibition in which the selected artists discuss the essence of playful activity.
According to the Dutch historian and cultural theorist Johan Huizinga, in his seminal book Homo Ludens, play is a free activity, located outside the sphere of ordinary life and endowed with a character of its own, carried out voluntarily but according to determined rules that imply interaction with others and at the same time an absence of material interest.
Bruno Munari, an Italian artist and designer, also shared Huizinga’s vision and understood play as a fundamental activity for learning and growth, not as a mere pastime but as a fundamental component of exchange.
Play in its purest dimension -that of dreams- is at the heart of RivaGLDF’s work. The work ‘Italia Rampante’ captures the essence of play as a transcendent experience that breaks down barriers and unites generations. Through an unexpected medium, Ferrari toy cars, the artist invites us to reflect on the power of play in creating a bridge between past, present and future, linking generations of children and adults in a temporal stratification that unites various models from the 1950s to the present day and at the same time tells of the pride and passion of a vibrant country like Italy.
Salvatore Petrucino explores the depths of human existence through his works ‘The King’s Skull’ and ‘Checkmate’, using chess as a powerful and evocative metaphor. The game, with its inherent struggle for power and its inevitable conclusion with ‘checkmate’, becomes an allegory of life itself, emphasising its fragility and transience.
Federico Pisciotta, looks at the figuration of the masters of the past and uses the expressiveness of painting as a way of reading his own interiority.
In the selected works, we have on the one hand the juxtaposition between the game of chess and ancient Rome, with the aim of evoking the birth of the game itself or its ancestor ludus latrunculorum. On the other, two references to the famous Lego ‘bricks’ evoke distant memories of his childhood and become the pure representation of what they materially interpret, a plastic world. They become the testimony of a world overwhelmed by an eternally intrusive material, a heartbreaking synthetic plague, as fake as an insane contemporary generation.
In Luca Balottin, play as an open and multiform experience becomes poetic and intimate abstraction. We find in him a rich symbolism in which the carousel, which takes us back to childhood moments of leisure, here describes the continuous cycle of human life, with its vicissitudes, moments of joy and pain, successes and failures.
This exhibition proposal aims to make the public reflect on the fact that, now more than ever, we need to reconnect with the pure essence of play, that which transcends the immediate demands of ordinary life. Because play can be a way to reconnect with our humanity, our connection with ourselves, our bodies and with others.
Because the first characteristic of play is that it is freedom. Because play is in fact freedom.
Gli artisti
Luca Balottin
Luca Balottin – in art ‘Bal’ – was born in Desenzano del Garda on 25 July 1996. From an early age, Luca showed a natural inclination for art, spending hours drawing and painting, exploring the world through his fervid imagination. Although his academic education takes a different path, with a high school diploma in science and a degree in Dental Hygiene from Brescia, art remains an inexhaustible passion that profoundly marks his life path. Luca is a self-taught artist, driven by a relentless curiosity and a deep capacity for observation. In recent years, Luca has focused his artistic production on canvas using acrylic colours, a choice that allows him to experiment with vibrant colour combinations and textures. Luca has participated in numerous group exhibitions, including those of artists from Sirmione and in the Mantua area, where he has also exhibited in solo shows.
Federico Pisciotta
Federico Pisciotta is an Italian contemporary artist born in Rome in 1975. In 1993 he graduated from the VI Liceo Artistico Statale in Rome and in 1997 in Painting at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Rome, with Nunzio Solendo and Sandro Trotti.
Following the study and in-depth study of painting techniques, looking at the figuration of the Masters of the past, he produced a long series of works that mark a fundamental and cherished moment for the artist, linked to the memory of dechirican Metaphysics. In 2000, he inaugurated his first solo exhibition in Rome. After a few years of teaching, he moved to Fara in Sabina and devoted himself exclusively to painting.
Starting with his latest compositional studies, he discovered the latest generation of video games by chance.
The subjects staged are taken from the best-known video game players, some created through the hybridisation of historical and virtual characters, then placed in a context absolutely unrelated to video game narratives but easily traceable to our post-social habits. His most recent production, focused on the search for a new figuration, investigates virtual reality, highlighting contemporary generational narcissism. He collaborates with various galleries in Rome, Florence and Bologna.
Salvatore Petrucino
Salvatore Petrucino is a multifaceted contemporary Italian artist whose creative journey spans the realms of surrealism, painting and beyond. Based in Italy, his artistic endeavours have won acclaim on a global scale, with his works captivating audiences on all continents. Driven by a deep passion for chess, animals and the evocative power of painting, Petrucino’s work is characterised by its originality and emotional resonance. Each piece is a testament to his boundless imagination, weaving together images that explore themes ranging from environmental conservation to love, diversity and the complexities of war. Since his artistic debut in 2010, Petrucino has been a prolific presence on the international art scene, participating in numerous prestigious exhibitions and events. His works have graced the walls of galleries and shop windows in major cities such as Rome, Monte Carlo, London, Madrid, Barcelona, New York and beyond. Most recently, Petrucino’s work was presented at the Biennale della Riviera Romana, the first international art biennial of the Roman Riviera in 2023, underlining its lasting impact and relevance in the contemporary art scene.
RivaGLDF (Giuseppe Lorenzo Di Fede)
Born in Bari in 1977, he lives and works in Milan.
He graduated at Ca Foscari University in Venice in Oriental Languages and Literature and at the School of Interpreters and Translators. After a long period in Japan, he graduated from the Nagano Gaigo Art Academy. He used his time in the East to evolve the usual Eurocentric point of view typical of western education before returning to Italy and assiduously attending the Accademia di Belle Arti in Venice. He collaborates with a small movement of young artists involved in the figurative arts with whom he organises group and solo exhibitions open to the public.
He creates and adheres with them to the “manifesto of dissociation and new decomposition” where some considerations and personal orientations in the field of art and neuroaesthetics are clear. Present at the Philadelphia Museum of Art selected as one of the Italian artists to represent his country in November 2024. Since 2021, he has been resident artist at the Miart Gallery in Milan and is currently artistic director and television presenter of a Contemporary Art programme “Ipotesi” on Seilatv Channel 94.
Mariya Yugina
She was born in 1988 in Leningrad (later St. Petersburg).
During her childhood and adolescence, Mariya often participated in chess competitions.
After finishing second in the first Russian under-18 championship, she focused on her university education and the study of painting. For many years, she worked as a chess instructor. After marrying Mihail Marin, a Romanian chess master, she started to devote herself to chess and painting. With the help of her husband, Mariya achieved the WFM title and a high score of 2182.
Mariya is well known in the chess world for her imaginative chess-related paintings. She has held art exhibitions during chess tournaments in several European countries. Several European and American magazines have published interviews and articles about Mariya. The artist constantly aims to expand and improve her style, in search of new ideas.
Corals Gallery
Via Evangelista Torricelli 21
20136 – Milano
https://www.instagram.com/coralsartgallery/
Opening 4 July 2024 18:30 – 21:00
Public Opening 5 – 31 July 2024
Monday – Friday from 15:00 to 19:00
Opening after hours by appointment
Sunday closed
Free entrance
Exhibition design and communication
Greta Zuccali |g.zuccali@hub-art.org
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