Exhibition
Palazzo De’ Toschi, Bologna
30.01–18.02.2024
Exhibition
Palazzo De’ Toschi, Bologna
30.01–18.02.2024
PATRICK TUTTOFUOCO
ABBANDONA GLI OCCHI
Curated by Davide Ferri
Palazzo De’ Toschi, Bologna
30 January–18 February 2024
On the occasion of ART CITY Bologna 2024 and the 50th edition of Arte Fiera, the Sala Convegni Banca di Bologna at Palazzo De’ Toschi will host Abbandona gli occhi, a special project by Patrick Tuttofuoco (Milan, 1974), one of the most renowned and appreciated Italian artists of his generation.
Curated by Davide Ferri and part of the institutional program of ART CITY Bologna, the exhibition will open to the public on Tuesday, January 30, and will run until Sunday, February 18, showcasing a series of new works by the artist as well as two recent pieces.
The exhibition
Abbandona gli occhi showcases a series of new productions and two recent works that reflect forms and approaches emblematic of Tuttofuoco’s practice since its beginnings: the use of industrial and synthetic materials such as neon, iron, and plastic; and a tendency to engage the viewer in inhabiting the exhibition, rather than observing it from a detached perspective. At the same time, the project explores elements that are part of the artist’s recent work: a focus on the medium of sculpture, crafted with industrial/synthetic materials like methacrylate and classical ones like marble; and a proclivity to translate form into figure, which in Abbandona gli occhi repeats, in various points of the space, the representation of the body.
Tuttofuoco’s works give shape to a theme that has been central to the artist’s work in recent years: transcendence, a state of semi-consciousness and surrender capable of releasing new perspectives and suggestions for viewing everyday life and the present. The exhibition reiterates, varying it in different points within the Palazzo De’ Toschi space, the figure of a soft body (almost a “body without organs,” to borrow from Gilles Deleuze), which recurs in the history of sculpture in various ways: as a slumped or reclining body, a headless body in a new marble sculpture that becomes the exhibition’s energetic center, and in a large neon work, Drop the body, which serves as a conceptual backdrop for the entire exhibition. Additionally, it is depicted as the face of a sleeper, a bodiless head, in two neon works created for the occasion, presenting two aspects to the viewer: on one side, the face—a head without a body and with closed eyes; on the other, words containing thoughts that the luminous glow transforms into “signifiers.”
The title, Abbandona gli occhi (Surrender Your Eyes), acts as a suggestion for the viewer to inhabit the energetic field created by the works, rather than merely looking at them. This invitation is echoed in one of the first works on display, Surrender Your Eyes, where a pair of hands open in a gesture of waiting, of welcoming: the viewer is ideally invited to “leave their gaze” there before continuing the journey with a new attitude.
The exhibition also extends to the small room of Palazzo De’ Toschi, where another sculpture, No Space, No Time (2019), is displayed. Made of methacrylate, it depicts two bodies—a mother and child embraced in sleep—connected in a contact that reinterprets classical iconographies such as the Pietà, once again placing the theme of surrender at the center of the project.
Banca di Bologna, the exhibition’s partner, reaffirms its support for contemporary art, continuing its path of broad-ranging Italian and international exhibition projects. This journey began in 2016 with Simone Menegoi (LA CAMERA: On the Materiality of Photography, 2016; Peter Buggenhout, 2017; Erin Shirreff, 2018; Geert Goiris, 2019) and continued with Davide Ferri, curator of the international painting group exhibition Le realtà ordinarie (Ordinary Realities, 2020) and the solo shows of Italo Zuffi (2022), Bettina Buck (2023), and Patrick Tuttofuoco (2024).
The artist
Patrick Tuttofuoco is a visual artist and a professor at the Faculty of Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies at NABA in Milan.
His practice, which blends Modernism and Pop, is conceived as a dialogue between the individual and their ability to transform the environment they inhabit, exploring notions of community and social integration. The artist pushes figuration toward abstraction, using the human being as a paradigm of existence, a matrix, and a unit of measurement for reality. From this cognitive and interpretative process, infinite versions of the human being and the context of their existence emerge, translating into forms that breathe life into his sculptures.
Exhibition views
Informations
- EXIBITION CURATED BY
- Davide Ferri
- DATES
- 30 January–18 February 2024
- LOCATION
- Sala Convegni Banca di Bologna – Palazzo De’ Toschi
Piazza Minghetti 4/D, Bologna - OPENING
- Tuesday, 30 January 2024, 6 PM
Press
- PRESS OFFICE
- Sara Zolla – Tel. +39 346 8457982 e-mail press@sarazolla.com
- PRESS RELEASE
- Press release [it]
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