Aníbal López (A-1 53167)
Antologia de la violencia en Guatemala
May 11–July 16, 2012
Opening: Thursday May 10, 2012, 6:30pm
Hours: 10–6:30pm
prometeogallery di Ida Pisani
Via G. Ventura 3
20134 Milan
T/F + 39 02 26924450
and
Giuseppe Stampone
Global Education
May 21–July 31, 2012
Opening: Saturday May 19, 2012, 6:30pm
Hours: 4–7:30pm by appointment
Curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio
prometeogallery di Ida Pisani
Ex Chiesa San Matteo
Piazza San Matteo 3
55100 Lucca, Italy
T/F + 39 0583 495552
info [at] prometeogallery.com
Prometeogallery is pleased to present two solo exhibitions: Antologia de la violencia en Guatemala by Aníbal López (A-1 53167) and Global Education by Giuseppe Stampone.
Aníbal López examines the situation in Guatemala, his homeland, with the greatest attention, mainly using sculpture as his artistic medium. The starting point for the artist’s anthropological considerations is his awareness that when modern man replaced religious beliefs with legal principles and farming property with profit as a symbol of power, industry took the place of military resources and the functions of art were profoundly transformed. While the work of art originally aimed to preserve collective ideals, protecting them from criticism, with the passing of time art gradually lost its moral and educational function and retained only that of criticism. In so far as it is a means of production, technique has maintained its subjective value as ornament and as an expression of individuality, ultimately transforming itself into monetary value. Aníbal López attempts to solve this problem by showing a sort of traditional craftsmanship that, in all its crudeness, illustrates the daily death of the people of Guatemala, a country where human beings are often violated as a category, as are human rights, by a state apparatus that is a coercive institution based on the administration of violence. The artist thus recalls the importance of the way in which every nation-state recognises the fundamental rights of its citizens, or fails to do so.
The distinctive feature of Stampone’s exhibition is an underlying thread which reveals the shift from the spoken to the written word through to an interactive experience. From Gutenberg’s invention onwards, the concept of education was based on the fact that every word corresponded to a letter and that in turn, it referred to an image, and the shift from the spoken to the written word took place by means of an alphabet primer. Stampone’s reflections start out from the consideration that this form of education intrinsically requires a coercive type of policy, and thus an education that is imposed from above, West-centric, and divorced from the world of experience. Global Education, on the contrary, is based on the experience of each human being. Significantly, the artist draws on immediately recognisable popular images, to which he contributes new meaning. Reassuring symbols and omnipresent icons of the most popular imagination, which satisfy the expectations of the standard consumer, are revisited from a critical and ironic point of view, thus destabilising the viewer’s perspective. From the manual skills of the Renaissance to a neo-dimensional, interactive mentality, Stampone’s aim is to highlight this shift in the mentality of man and in the shift of power from being at the centre of the community to the centre of a connectivity that is digital but also experiential and emotional.
Aníbal López (A1-53167), was born in 1964 in Guatemala, where he currently lives and works. He presented a solo exhibition at the Centro Cultural de España in Guatemala City (2011) and has put on numerous performances over the years. Group exhibitions at the international level include the Bienal de Pontevedra (2010), the biennale in Porto Allegre (2007), the Prague Biennale (2003), and the Venice Biennale (2001), where he was awarded the Golden Lion as Best Young Artist. In June 2012 he will be among the artists selected for dOCUMENTA (13), Kassel.
Giuseppe Stampone (Cluses, France, 1973) lives and works in Teramo and New York. His works have been shown in prestigious museums such as MACRO (Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma) and GAMeC (Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea) in Bergamo. He won the 2011 Maretti Prize and his work was shown at the Havana Biennial in Cuba. He participated in the Gwangju Biennale (2012) and the Liverpool Biennial (2010). For some years now he has been working on the Solsitizio project, funded by the European Union, in collaboration with institutions, associations, NGOs, artists, curators, critics, and other professionals.
*Images above:
Top: Aníbal López (A1-53167), Antologia de la violencia en Guatemala, 2012. Earthenware sculpture. 24 x 57 x 36 cm. Courtesy prometeogallery di Ida Pisani, Milan/Lucca.
Bottom: Giuseppe Stampone, Global Education, 2012. Drawings installation (detail), blue and red Bic pen on paper. 40 x 34 cm each. Courtesy prometeogallery di Ida Pisani, Milan/Lucca.