Painting Clouds
Painting Clouds is Alex Urso‘s solo show that officially inaugurates the new THEPÒSITO Art Space contemporary art gallery in Narni Scalo, South Umbria and it’s curated by Lorenzo Rubini. The exhibition’s research ideally starts from the series Dipingere le nuvole (Painting Clouds), created by the artist between 2021 and 2022, and reshapes the space of the new Umbrian gallery by introducing a production never presented to the public before. In Painting Clouds Urso addresses in a personal way the delicate theme of the artist’s ‘work,’ understood here not as a creative pursuit, but as a livelihood activity, a task that the artist himself is called upon to perform in order to pursue his own research. The series becomes the premise for analyzing, and to some extent criticizing, the social preconception according to which the artist is still associated with that figure – a romantic and a dreamer – who lives exclusively from his own passion.
In the series on show, Alex Urso takes one photo a day for an entire year: in each of these shots, the author is intent on ‘painting clouds’ in the sky. The gesture refers to the period when, during and after his years of study at the Academy, the artist painted apartment interiors to make ends meet. The work becomes of multiple readings. On the one hand, the simple, almost childlike performative act undeniably ties in with the concept of artistic action, which, even according to Picasso, was meant to be similar to that of the child who without preconceptions is free and his art pure; on the other hand, it becomes a symbol of a desire to carry oneself beyond the limit, a desire to announce one’s presence and assert with certainty one’s value as an artist today.
The exhibition, with a strong site-specific implantation, becomes an opportunity for the artist to self-analyze his own journey, a way to look in the mirror and evaluate what he has accomplished to date. At the same time, the personal vicissitude is posed as an object of reflection for analysis extended to the whole system: “What do artists do when they (are not) artists?” asks Urso, posing a question bordering on the provocative, prompting the viewer to observe the art world beyond the inherited romantic stereotypes.
Most of the works in the photographic series are displayed in a linear fashion to form a compact grid, as if forming a gothic window from which to look out, in a play of correspondences between inside and outside. The exhibition space is characterized by a series of newly produced ‘mirror’ sculptures, which refer to that profound concept of looking inside, while reflecting the exhibition itself in a continuous play of viewpoints. Their original content seems to open onto other realities. A small detail links the exhibition to a short writing by Franz Kafka, Ein Hungerkünstler (A Hunger Artist, 1924). The Czech author wondered what the true fate of the artist and his quest might be by lacing it with themes such as isolation, spirituality and fear of personal failure in a society animated by misunderstanding and incomprehension of the work of others. The setting and poetics of the exhibition also becomes the perfect debut for an exhibition space, that of THEPÒSITO, which like many projects alternate between dreams and prejudices, but still provide concrete support for the reality of contemporary artistic and cultural research.
Alex Urso (Civitanova Marche, 1987) is a multidisciplinary artist, he graduated in Painting from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. His interests are transversal, as well as the techniques used in his projects, from installation to collage to the use of augmented reality. He has exhibited at Casa Testori (Milan), Fondazione Brugnatelli (Milan), Studio 87 (Valletta), Magacin Gallery (Belgrade), Italian Institute of Culture in Cracow, Zacheta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Monopol Gallery (Warsaw), Estorick Collection of Modern Italian Art (London), Entropia Gallery (Breslau), Palazzo Malipiero (Venice). From 2012 to 2019 he’s lived in Warsaw, carrying on his artistic research and dealing with curatorship. Among the institutions with which he has collaborated in recent years: Zacheta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw, Italian Institute of Culture in Warsaw, Polish Pavilion at the 16° Venice Biennale – International Architecture Exhibition, Benetton Foundation, Adam Mickiewicz Institute. In 2017 he was co-curator of La Biche Biennale, defined by The Guardian as “the smallest art biennial in the world”, hosted on a deserted island in the Pacific Ocean. Since 2014 he’s part of the editorial team of Artribune, he’s editor at Sky Arte since 2018. He is director and curator of FIUTO Art Space.
