A Fior di Pelle.

Ricerche sulla superficie

Paolo Schiavocampo

Barbara Colombo

Lorenzo Di Lucido

Ludovico Orombelli

Rolando Tessadri

curated by Gabriele Salvaterra.

In "The Becoming of the Arts", published for the first time in 1959, Gillo Dorfles clearly fixes one of the achievements of twentieth century painting that will be a point of no return also for all subsequent experiences: “The surface of the canvas that once pretended to be a three-dimensional space finally returns to being just a two-dimensional object and, from this moment on, the whole surface is acquiring a new value "

This apparently rather banal and limiting recognition reveals a series of previously unexpressed possibilities which, on this solid patina and limited to a few elements, can unexpectedly develop infinite approaches.

From this, concludes Dorfles, it follows that "we will also have to confer to that surface the value of 'protagonist' - or at least of co-protagonist - complementary dialectic of that of the circumscribed and opposed form".

The exhibition A Fior di Pelle, starting from a few masterpieces of Paolo Schiavocampo (Palermo, 1924) tells a series of artistic variations capable of probing the incredible qualities of the pictorial skin.

Schiavocampo, an artist with a long experience rooted in the twentieth century, highlights a possible way to use the surface as a device in its own right, characterized by a concrete, material and factual treatment that brings it back to the flow of everyday life. Starting from this exemplary starting point, the propositions of Colombo, Di Lucido, Orombelli and Tessadri move between pictorial manual skills, tautology, tactile synaesthesia and cast procedures, relaunching the potential of the surface in the new millennium and making it, each according to its own inclinations, still the protagonist.