CHIAMATA ALLE ARTI | 2021

Mucciaccia Contemporary is pleased to present Chiamata alle Arti | 2021, the group exhibition organized in collaboration with the Academy of Fine Arts of Naples, Rome and Venice. The most talented students will be on view until 06 November 2021. For this year’s edition, we are honoured to confirm the participation of The Academies of Fine Arts of Naples, Rome and Venice. The students exhibiting are Valerio Cavallaro, Raimondo Coppola, Ketty Gobbo, Tammaro Menale, Piervincenzo Nocera, Anastasia Norenko, Ottavia Pompei, Antonio Salzano and Patrizio Volpini.

The exhibition is the first edition of a series that will be held annually, and is open to students who are enrolled in at least the last year of the triennial or who are attending the biennial that follows. The selection is carried out by Mucciaccia Contemporary gallery with the support of the Academy of Fine Arts. The project is open to all Academies of Fine Arts in Italy, and in view of the following editions, we kindly invite all the Academies to participate, wanting to be a true call for art. The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalog published by Mucciaccia Contemporary Edizioni.

The show is vibrant and full of visual short-circuits that offer a comprehensive and heteroclite view of the experimental state of art emerging in academic institutions. The exhibition unfolds within the space, leading the visitor to reflect on wide-ranging issues, such as: environmental problems and behaviour in today’s society, however always with a view on the traditions of a popular geography to which the students belong. The exhibition also includes a more lyrical and intimate note, which in some cases involves the artist dealing with the extremes of his own existence or with iconographies taken from the classic subjects of art history. Experimentation is also tackled by some of the artists. Using  non-pictorial elements derived from contemporary city life, or otherwise non-rich materials such as terracotta and jute, up to the investigation of new drawing techniques that reveal an attempt to study geometric form that leads to surreal aspects.

Valerio Cavallaro (Eboli, SA, 1998) | Academy of Fine Arts, Rome
Valerio Cavallaro contemplates drawing techniques, deviating from academic rules of diligently executed drawings. He focuses on the constructive and perspective aspect of the figures within the space. In this way, the broken lines that characterise his artworks, investigate the space and its limits. His attention is turned towards the incompleteness, revealing also the subtle existential aspect of the portrayed figures, such as the theme of dual personality, which seems to be the result of an alchemical charm.

Raimondo Coppola (Naples, 1997) | Academy of Fine Arts, Naples
The artworks have a strongly experimental character. The artist uses materials that derive from nature, as well as refuse materials and plastics. The artist reflects on concepts such as environmental and social issues. The luminosity in the video reveals  the tensions of the human state of mind, whilst the fig tree installation is an exaltation  representing a reflection on our current environmental ecosystem.

Ketty Gobbo (Treviso, 1999) | Academy of Fine Arts, Venice
Ketty Gobbo’s sculptures bring together past and present. Inspired by the ancient technique of vase ceramics, the sculptures are at the same time intended as a reflection on the contemporary world. The carved drawings of symbols and objects taken from everyday life, depicted on the surface of her sculptures are an invitation to reflect on themes of consumption and the obsession that lies in the idea of the happiness of gain and purchase.

Tammaro Menale (Aversa, CE, 1995) | Academy of Fine Arts, Naples
The artist reflects on the value of fragments taken from our everyday life. He creates collages with residual materials and installations with found objects. The installation titled Conserve, with the glass bottles that contain tomato sauce, is a symbol of a popular tradition dear to Neapolitan culture. In the atypical juxtaposition of figurative fragments, the collages provide evidence of a fragmented reality in which the combination, at times desecrating, tends to stimulate the viewer as to their meaning.

Piervincenzo Nocera (Nocera Inferiore, SA, 1997) | Academy of Fine Arts, Naples
The artist focuses on the theme of the portrait and the figure. The sensual and deep gazes of the women he depicts are synonymous of a corrosion of the sense of well-being and security that contemporary society seeks to instil. The monochrome paintings on display are either blue or red, a chromatic scale that tends to express the emotional sphere of the characters and the settings narrated by them.

Anastasia Norenko (Zolotonosha, Ukraine, 1994) | Academy of Fine Arts, Rome
Anastasia Norenko uses non-pictorial materials, such as billboards found on the streets of Rome, as her canvas. The artist paints subjects inspired by iconographies taken from art history, such as Michelangelo’s Tondo Doni and Rubens’s Three Graces, which she revisits in an ironic and desecrating way. By doing so, the artist removes any iconicity. In addition, the use of bright and vivid colours reveals the radical aspect of an eclectic pictorial language that is totally solitary and voracious.

Ottavia Pompei (San Benedetto del Tronto, AP, 1992) | Academy of Fine Arts, Rome
The artist uses a particular drawing technique based on china ink and promarker on 220 gsm paper. Her research has an epithelial character: the artist investigates the appearance of human skin and translates this research into drawing practice. The figures are the result of surreal and impossible geometric rebuses; they assume the lives of strange creatures half-human and half-animal. There is no shading, just tenacious and sharp drawing strokes, which define figures within voluptuous geometric joints, so as to create a highly perspective and deliberately balanced visual rule.

Antonio Salzano (Avellino, 1995) | Academy of Fine Arts, Naples
By using poor materials such as terracotta and jute, the artist offers a disenchanted and ironic reflection on reality. The titles of Antonio Salzano’s sculptures are like a rebus, leading the viewer towards word puzzles that are connected to the subject of the work itself. The sculptures on show reveal the artist’s particular aptitude for reflecting on popular traditions of his city of origin, on environmental issues such as pollution caused by waste, and also on the consumer aspect of contemporary life.

Patrizio Volpini (Fondi, LT, 1997) | Academy of Fine Arts, Rome
The artist considers painting to be a state of emotional freedom. His brushstrokes are free and supple. The artworks on display are all oil on iron sheet and the artist has chosen a small format to communicate the intimate aspect of the scenes represented.