19.01.19 — 14.04.19
Il disegno politico italiano, A plus A Gallery, Venice.
Curated by Aurora Fonda and Sandro Pignotti.
l disegno politico italiano Preview 19 January 2019 at 6.pm 19.01 – 28.02.2019 curated by Aurora Fonda and Sandro Pignotti Artists Rebecca Agnes, Paola Angelini, Federico Antonini, Ruth Beraha, Riccardo Beretta, Alvise Bittente, Calori & Maillard, Alice Cattaneo, Lia Cecchin, Guendalina Cerruti, Alessio D’Ellena, Fabio De Meo, Barbara De Vivi, Chiara Enzo, Roberto Fassone, Valentina Furian, Enej Gala, Riccardo Giacconi e Andrea Morbio, Gli Impresari, Marco Gobbi, Gabriele Longega, Iva Lulashi, Beatrice Marchi, Silvia Mariotti, Corinne Mazzoli, Rebecca Moccia, Ryts Monet, Caterina Morigi, Francesco Nordio, Francesco Pozzato, Barbara Prenka, Paolo Pretolani, Anila Rubiku, Alberto Scodro, Miriam Secco, Davide Sgambaro, Matteo Stocco, g. olmo stuppia, Alberto Tadiello, Sulltane Tusha, Lucia Veronesi.
The course of history, seen in terms of the concept of catastrophe, can actually claim no more attention from than a child’s kaleidoscope, which with every turn of the hand dissolves the established order into a new array. There is profound truth in this image. The concepts of the ruling class have always been the mirrors thtat enabled an image of “order” to prevail. – The kaleidoscope must be smashed.
Walter Benjamin, Central Park, in: Selected Writings 1938-1940, Volume 4, Harvard University Press 2003, edited by Howard Eiland and Michael W. Jennings, p. 164.
The rapidity of the hand, and the taut nature of the strokes make drawing the technique of critical illustration of gradual – and sometimes sudden – political and social changes. In eighteenth-century England, William Hogarth described London society in all its facets with sharp wit and irony. As Honorè Daumier, a century later, analysed the social classes in France. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Georg Grosz and Otto Dix used drawings as a political argument for social criticism. Like Goya’s engravings, Grosz’s illustrations reveal intense expressiveness and political consciousness. What all these authors have in common is the use of drawing as a form of denunciation and analysis of contemporary society; as an artistic device capable of expressing the malaise and decadence, as well as the different possibilities that every change brings within itself.
Italy has always been a seismograph very sensitive to changes. History itself presents Italy as a laboratory of new political-social theories, as a factory of premonition. From the beginning of the twentieth century, it is easy to grasp this peculiar pioneering characteristic of innovative political and social drawings. In 2018, when, from different perspectives, the last forty years are being reviewed and revisited to transform, change, or even reverse the routes of capitalism, globalization, and the whole of Europe, what insight does the artist have? Looking at the history and tradition of drawing, how does the artistic practice react to every rotation, to every collapse and birth of the new “orders”, either real or apparent, and to the mirrors that form their image?
A plus A Gallery
San Marco 3073
Venezia 30124
www.aplusa.it