Tomaso De Luca
25 Feb - 28 Apr 2012
TOMASO DE LUCA
25 February - 28 April, 2012
In his work Tomaso De Luca (Verona, 1988) simultaneously employs different techniques that unleash a kind of re-analysis of the ‘grammar’ of current thought, together with the sense of security that it entails. Interested in observing things indirectly, De Luca has abandoned the vertical thought system of reason in favour of anti-logic and the unexplored fissures of language and space – doing and happening take place prior to the action of simply thinking. Through his subjects, which revolve around the concepts of body, history, landscape and space, De Luca develops his considerations on the idea of monument, eroding its typical immobility and structure.
In the project 100 Teste per un cacciatore (100 Heads for Hunter), completed in 2010, De Luca completed 100 drawings of an outsized sculpture cast aside from Italy’s Fascist era, overwriting the stone immobility of the original piece through his repeated action of drawing.
In Movement/Monument, completed in 2011, the artist has created a ‘mobile’ monument reminiscent of the evacuation of Rome’s San Lorenzo district following the Allied air raids in 1943 and the subsequent occupation of Villa Torlonia by the homeless. With a group of Roman high school students De Luca organised a march along the very same route taken by the refugees, ‘maiming’ an equestrian monument by assembling fragments of castoffs from a marble workshop and tying them under one foot of each of the marchers to make them limp. De Luca thus erased the distinction between act and sculpture, between event and commemoration.
Tomaso De Luca is experimenting movements and attrition between materials, observing the erosion of monuments and their significance, taking possession of the theoretical and material castoffs of the work process.
The Monument, conceived for his debut solo show at Monitor, stems from the artist’s reflection on the migration of architecture and monument, both of which are inherently static and whose solidity in space generates a safe area within whose confines it is possible to move, observe and discover. The Monument is an exodus, a retreat that is both frantic and orderly, a disorienting attempt to confer movement on that which is still. In his drawings – a technique that is by definition laborious – the artist has orchestrated the flight of Rome’s sculptures and monuments. Statues, either whole or in pieces, run clumsily helter-skelter as they seek a way to abandon the spaces where they have been confined. De Luca thus creates a disorientation mechanism, a place where reference points are continuously shifting and where monuments – that have become more akin to interior archetypes – subvert coordinates at their every movement. Like an ‘architect of uncertainty’, the artist produces a minimal yet powerful mutation: instead of ruins, he has scattered active subjects within space – monsters that turn in circles, that oscillate, poised in a movement that is about to happen or which may never take place.
Tomaso De Luca (Verona, Italy, 1988, lives and works in Rome) Selected solo shows: 2011: 'Rise and Fall', curated by D. Tomaiuolo and P. Gallio, 26CC, Rome; 2010: 'The Sleepers/100 teste per un cacciatore', curated by M. Smarrelli, MACRO, Rome. Selected group shows: 2011: 'Premio Lum', curated by C. Corbetta, G. Carroppo, S. Chiodi, Teatro Margherita, Bari; 'The Gentlemen of Verona', curated by A. Bruciati, Palazzo Forti, Verona; 'Tutte le stelle cadute – l’elegia di San Lorenzo', curated by M. Smarrelli and M.R. Sossai, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome; 2010: 'Non totalmente immemori. Né completamente nudi', curated by A. Bruciati and E. Comuzzi, GC.AC, Monfalcone (GO); 2009: Studio Visit, curated by A. Bruciati, GC.AC, Monfalcone (GO).
25 February - 28 April, 2012
In his work Tomaso De Luca (Verona, 1988) simultaneously employs different techniques that unleash a kind of re-analysis of the ‘grammar’ of current thought, together with the sense of security that it entails. Interested in observing things indirectly, De Luca has abandoned the vertical thought system of reason in favour of anti-logic and the unexplored fissures of language and space – doing and happening take place prior to the action of simply thinking. Through his subjects, which revolve around the concepts of body, history, landscape and space, De Luca develops his considerations on the idea of monument, eroding its typical immobility and structure.
In the project 100 Teste per un cacciatore (100 Heads for Hunter), completed in 2010, De Luca completed 100 drawings of an outsized sculpture cast aside from Italy’s Fascist era, overwriting the stone immobility of the original piece through his repeated action of drawing.
In Movement/Monument, completed in 2011, the artist has created a ‘mobile’ monument reminiscent of the evacuation of Rome’s San Lorenzo district following the Allied air raids in 1943 and the subsequent occupation of Villa Torlonia by the homeless. With a group of Roman high school students De Luca organised a march along the very same route taken by the refugees, ‘maiming’ an equestrian monument by assembling fragments of castoffs from a marble workshop and tying them under one foot of each of the marchers to make them limp. De Luca thus erased the distinction between act and sculpture, between event and commemoration.
Tomaso De Luca is experimenting movements and attrition between materials, observing the erosion of monuments and their significance, taking possession of the theoretical and material castoffs of the work process.
The Monument, conceived for his debut solo show at Monitor, stems from the artist’s reflection on the migration of architecture and monument, both of which are inherently static and whose solidity in space generates a safe area within whose confines it is possible to move, observe and discover. The Monument is an exodus, a retreat that is both frantic and orderly, a disorienting attempt to confer movement on that which is still. In his drawings – a technique that is by definition laborious – the artist has orchestrated the flight of Rome’s sculptures and monuments. Statues, either whole or in pieces, run clumsily helter-skelter as they seek a way to abandon the spaces where they have been confined. De Luca thus creates a disorientation mechanism, a place where reference points are continuously shifting and where monuments – that have become more akin to interior archetypes – subvert coordinates at their every movement. Like an ‘architect of uncertainty’, the artist produces a minimal yet powerful mutation: instead of ruins, he has scattered active subjects within space – monsters that turn in circles, that oscillate, poised in a movement that is about to happen or which may never take place.
Tomaso De Luca (Verona, Italy, 1988, lives and works in Rome) Selected solo shows: 2011: 'Rise and Fall', curated by D. Tomaiuolo and P. Gallio, 26CC, Rome; 2010: 'The Sleepers/100 teste per un cacciatore', curated by M. Smarrelli, MACRO, Rome. Selected group shows: 2011: 'Premio Lum', curated by C. Corbetta, G. Carroppo, S. Chiodi, Teatro Margherita, Bari; 'The Gentlemen of Verona', curated by A. Bruciati, Palazzo Forti, Verona; 'Tutte le stelle cadute – l’elegia di San Lorenzo', curated by M. Smarrelli and M.R. Sossai, Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome; 2010: 'Non totalmente immemori. Né completamente nudi', curated by A. Bruciati and E. Comuzzi, GC.AC, Monfalcone (GO); 2009: Studio Visit, curated by A. Bruciati, GC.AC, Monfalcone (GO).