The Pitiless Gaze of Hysterical Realism

The Popping Club hosts the collective show ‘The Pitiless Gaze of Hysterical Realism’, running through February 14th, 2015 (visiting hours: Tue-Sat 4-8 pm, Via Baccina 84, Rome, Italy; gallery closed until January 8th, 2015).

Artists

Axel Void, Ben Slow, Best Ever, Cane Morto, Dale Grimshaw, David Walker, EVER, Fintan Magee, Gaia, Guy Denning, James Kalinda, Jerico, Jimmy C, Mata Ruda, Matt Small, Nanook, Philippe Baudelocque, Stinkfish.

Exhibition concept

The show focuses on portrait, as a key to interpret reality and reflect the spirit of our age for future generations to acknowledge: “The act of observing and the expectations of translating the subject into images provides the power to manifest the inexhaustible node between the subjective identity and the public image. The movement of figurative visual arts has always been symbolised by portraits which has consequently become the continuous narration of mankind. Through the visual representation of the body, the face, the form, the dynamism, vitality and movement, the beauty as well as the ugliness and deformity; artists have always tried to represent the constant crossing of the roads of humanity. These factors combined have the ability to be contemporary only if able to express the spirit and soul of their times. For this reason these artists are in this selection, I find each one of them as a solid interpreter of the spirit of our times.” (curator’s note)

Citing different authors, curator Stefano S. Antonelli also describes the work of the participating artists as “a perfect representation of this western world vision called by James Wood: hysterical realism. If the work of these authors is a hysterical realistic representation of our lives the work of these artists is the pitiless gaze of this hysterical realism.”

Click on the images to enlarge.

EVER – ‘La Repubblica’, 2014

“I was born, they fed me, educated me, instructed me, and shaped me, but no one ever made me “discover” graffiti. We came together by chance upon seeing and analysing one another… we taught one another, getting to know each other in the moment just before my pre-teen period (it was either masturbate or paint something). First I thought that it could be a pastime, and then I realised that I had quit cigarettes but not graffiti.” – Ever

Axel Void – ‘Time’, 2014

“Every time a man is begotten and born, the clock of human life is wound up anew to repeat once more its same old tune that has already been played innumerable times, movement by movement and measure by measure, with insignificant variations.” – Arthur Schopenhauer

James Kalinda – ‘Momentaneamente sprovvisto’, 2014

“Momentaneamente sprovvisto (currently lacking) refers to the portrayed child, half of him is currently lacking from fear and deformities created by humanity’s evilness.  The remaining half is developing into something grotesque: an omen of an inevitable path where he’ll be deprived from his primordial essence and overcome with esoteric, obscure and gloomy concerns.” – James Kalinda

Fintan Magee – ‘Propaganda’, 2014

“I look at loss and transition a lot and the different aspects of the human condition. I also like to create curious images that give people a chance to make their own interpretations, I like to let people take something away from my work that I may have not even noticed” – Fintan Magee

Mata Ruda – ‘Autonoma’, 2014

“I was leaving the South to fling myself into the unknown… I was taking a part of the South to transplant in alien soil, to see if it could grow differently, if it could drink of new and cool rains, bend in strange winds, respond to the warmth of other suns and, perhaps, to bloom.” – Richard Wright

Nanook – ‘Augustus the Conquerer’, 2014

“Augustus the Conquerer portrays the Roman Emperor juxtaposed with a contemporary African immigrant. On his head is a bust of ‘black Shakespeare’ with a miniature depiction of another Augustus on his head. The background is a recreation “Stormy Landscape with Jupiter, Mercury, Philemon, and Baucis” by Peter Paul Rubens, while in the bottom right hand corner of the painting Nanook placed an eye, fallen from the Roman bust.” – Nanook

Philippe Baudelocque – ‘Self Portrait’, 2014

“My vision of the Human Kingdom is a hand. I use this powerful ancient archetype as a representation of the human kind as whole, regardless of race, nationality, culture or gender – A Collective Portrait.” – Philippe Baudelocque

Gaia – ‘Olives of Puglia’, 2014

Ben Slow – ‘Thinking out loud’, 2014

“My work shows real people, real captures, this one being of a homeless man, a problem I see far too much as I travel around the world. It’s an honest representation of our world that most people try to ignore. As a society we are distracted, some would say necessarily. I feel too much contemporary art acts as simply another distraction but I want my work to have more depth and that is something I will continue to explore.” – Ben Slow

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Curator: Stefano S. Antonelli
Management: Francesca Mezzano
Production: 999Contemporary
Adjunct curator: Marta Veltri
Executive production: Cecilia Caporlingua, Tiziano Iosca
Location settler: Francesco Caporlingua

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