presents
IGINIO DE LUCA
EPIFONIE
Curated by Cristina Cobianchi
First screening and discussion: Tuesday, May 14, 2024 6:30 pm
Video on loop through Saturday, May 18 from 3-7 p.m. (last admission 6:30 p.m.)
Speakers
Benedetta Carpi De Resmini, Anna Cestelli Guidi, Pietro Gaglianò,
Maria Francesca Guida
Free Entrance
AlbumArte Via Flaminia 122 00196 Roma
During 2023 AlbumArte focused its research on sound within contemporary visual artworks, producing the Dreamscape project, an immersive sound installation by multimedia artist Eva Frapiccini, which was taken to various cities and with the project’s participation in the Son Biennial in Switzerland, where the analysis was deepened. Now this research continues through the presentation of a series of videos by multimedia artist Iginio De Luca (Formia 1966, lives in Rome) included in the AlbumArte VideoArtForum review, which has been presenting video selections with debate since 2016. On Tuesday, May 14 at 6:30 p.m., a set of eight videos will be presented where the artist uses sound as the protagonist or co – protagonist of his work.
This will be followed by a discussion with four critics and curators who have worked with him over time: Benedetta Carpi De Resmini, Anna Cestelli Guidi, Pietro Gaglianò and Maria Francesca Guida.
The video selection will be available to the public on a loop until Saturday, May 18 (3-7 p.m. last admission 6:30 p.m.).
Sound has always been important to De Luca, who also has a musical background, and this language has always been a prominent element in his research. Here, therefore, the videos presented, some completely dedicated to sound, have the strength to use this expressive element with great effectiveness. It is not music, mind you, it is sound obtained through dissonances, rhythm, amplified noises, sounds produced by objects or by the artist’s bare hands on an ancient piece of marble, as in Le voci di dentro (2020) or on the slats of a bed as in Zi’ Nicola (2022), or tapping her fingers on a gate (Talking Matter 2024) to moving plates and glasses making them clatter like her grief, on a set table, imagining that the second diner may be a close artist friend of hers who died young last year (Inbandita, 2023). The sounds may be those of the sparser and sleepier nighttime traffic, but that makes us feel more lonely and almost destabilized when we return to the midst of silence (Solarium 2015) or that of voices testifying to memories one has wanted to keep in a remote corner of one’s soul (Subsal, 2017).
Of course, in this review, one cannot miss the sound of his political videos, such as Manica a vento (2009) where the Italian flag leads the Mameli anthem depending on the direction of the wind: to the right (if the flag flies to the right) or to the contrary (if the flag flies to the left).Meanwhile, the sound continually cuts off like an old vinyl record that has been crawled, where the turntable needle gets stuck, falters and then perhaps by a well-placed flick from the listener, it jumps the hurdle and barely starts up again, skipping a few notes and it sounds all right, but in fact it is not because that anthem in this work never progresses.Or when a marching band, looking triumphant and institutional, plays the national anthem, slowing down its rhythm until it becomes a dirge that gradually becomes agonic (iailat, the forms of a sound, 2018-19).
This is the first time that De Luca exhibits, together, most of his videos linked together by this file rouge, which is an element that has always been a part of him, along with all those different elements that characterize the expression of this poetic artist even in a protest (see his blitzes) and also with a dry, atonal, unusual sound, which succeeds, however, with its rhythm, to accompany us in the narrative and understand why.
Screening schedule:
Le voci di dentro (2020) HD video, 16:9, color, sound, duration: 3’52”
Inbandita (2023) HD video, 16:9, color, sound, duration: 4’36”
Zi Nicola (2022) HD video, 16:9, color, sound, duration: 5’20”
Manica a vento (2009) video Pal, 4:3, color, sound, duration: 3’01”
iailat, le forme di un suono (2018-19) HD video, 16:9, color, sound, duration: 5’11”
Sottosale (2017) HD video, 16:9, color, sound, duration: 5’29”
Solarium (2015) HD video, 16:9, color, sound, duration: 2’39”
Talking Matter (2023-24) HD video, 16:9, color, sound, duration: 7’01”
Biographical notes
Iginio De Luca (Formia LT, 1966 lives in Rome) graduated in Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, where he currently teaches Decoration. The use of multiple and different linguistic registers, such as photography, video, performance, installation, participatory art, urban action and sound, has always characterized his planning and consequently his methodological and operational choices. A habit of the artist is the practice of acts that he calls blitzes. Considering them to straddle the line between urban art and performance, the artist performs actions sometimes by flying overhead with airplanes, others by projecting images or writing on buildings in rapid night raids, and still others by arriving at places with elements of strong disturbance and visual impact, such as faux-election billboards. By hybridizing ethics and aesthetics, technology and behavioral actions, De Luca reclaims interaction with the environment and the public, denouncing, between irony and engagement, the crisis of values in contemporary society.
Selected solo exhibitions: 2023 Ca Maronn c’accumpagna curated by Adriana Polveroni, Galleria Blocco 13 – Rome; Tanti auguri e saluti curated by Pietro Gaglianò, Galleria Marina Bastianello – Mestre (VE).2022 A cuore aperto curated by Gabriele Landi, Aurelia sud, Arcola (SP); Tevere Expo curated by Istituto Italiano di Cultura, Italian Cultural Institute – Jakarta; Angolo Cottura curated by Pietro Gaglianò, De Luca Studio – Rome; Tevere Expo curated by Sabrina Vedovotto and Pietro Gaglianò, MACA, Museo Arte Contemporanea Accademia – Frosinone.2021 If these walls could speak curated by G. Capparelli, Casa Rossa – Alberobello (BA).2020 Le voci di dentro curated by Francesca Guida, Mercati di Traiano – Rome.2019 iailat curated by Villam, Villaggio Olimpico – Rome 2018 Solarium curated by Gino D’Ugo, Fourteen Artellaro – Lerici (SP); Iailat, Sound Corner curated by Silvano Manganaro Auditorium Parco della Musica – Rome. 2017. Riso Amaro curated by Claudio Libero Pisano, Albumarte – Rome 2016 Expatrie curated by Giorgio de Finis, Casa dell’Architettura – Rome. Winner of the call Cantica21 Italian Contemporary Art Everywhere – MAECI and MIC (2020) participates in Roma città aperta (2021) curated by Raffaella Frascarelli (Nomas Foundation) and Sabrina Vedovotto. (https://www.iginiodeluca.com)