LOSE YOUR HEAD
We know so very little about reality. 95% of everything that happens in the universe is either too fast or too slow,
too big or too small to be perceived through human senses… All said and done, reality may be considered as an involuntarily
imaginary journey… Losing one’s head…A thrilling, overwhelming, romantic sensation; one of those situations
which you would like to take away with you only to melt into the sunset. Losing one’s head… A multifaceted
phenomenon, a series of “accidents”, of emotions, of incursions into a series of “visions” of the contemporary world,
held together only by the common threads of a romantic, sweetly exaggerated dimension. Romanticism is not the problem;
it is merely a symptom of a new point of view, of a foreign, alien, disarming point of view. Heads and statuettes
and disguises and wounds and references…and once again, dreams and visions and situations and tensions. A
warm collection of romantic artists, an original mechanism of juxtaposing threads which make up a delicate interplay
of crossovers, creating an overall framework which produces a particular effect reminiscent of a neo-Gothic building,
popping up in the most unexpected landscapes, and highlighting a disapproving gaze cast over the language of passion.
This is a visual adventure undertaken with the awareness that the modern age is characterised by mass tourism
and package trips. Yet this is a voyage with no clear destination, an interesting way of approaching different forms
of reality. Losing one’s head is a romantic “malaise” in which anxiety and happiness are mingled, just as fear and pleasure,
entropy and catharsis are, along with a whole host of visual relics. Faces, actions and situations which react to
each other like chemical compounds, an enchantment, a charm, a chant… Reasons and explanations and motivations
are blown away into tiny splinters, fragments of emotion, glimpses of intimacy which may be seen in the dark, for it
is in the dark that one starts to dream…to lose one’s head. Molecules bind to form links, dissolving matter, living
through the creation of objects, events, places, gestures, dreams, natural or synthetic worlds. Everything is translated
into a vague sense of restlessness, driving the soul to flee beyond the boundaries of space and time. Like the typical
role of the outlaw willing to break any law be it human or divine, or the “poet of the damned” who re-evaluates the
sphere of the emotions, of irrationality, of passion. Like a poetic narrative. Extremely complex images with romantic
undertones; fascinating, haunting images with numerous subjects: women and faces and skulls and much-loved
heroes, lovers and crowns of thorns and hearts and a knife and flowers and…The classic romantic repertory which
comes down to one single story of love, of coming together, of overcoming. A love song sung by a chorus, by a series
of images, by losing one’s head. One of the most characteristic traits of romanticism in this exhibition is the underlining
of the passionate and instinctive side of the works chosen. These are works which have always brought about
continuous disruption: it’s a romantic reading of beauty. Yet the relationship between the notion of beauty and the
masses of aesthetes is not as direct or as automatic as one might think. It passes through a social illness, documented
and studied for a number of decades, known as narcissism. This mental ailment plays a role in contemporary affectivity
comparable to that of hysteria and neurosis in Freud’s day. Its characteristic feature is the supremacy of the image
over reality in all fields of public and private communication. Obviously, as soon as the elaboration and control of the
image becomes one’s underlying preoccupation, any notion of abstraction or critical thought falls by the wayside. In
actual fact, narcissism is not love of self at all; the shift of importance towards one’s own image is made at the cost
of completely quashing one’s individual existence and reality. And thus while contemporary narcissism entails a complete
negation of one’s own affective identity, these images serve as genuine inroads into the intimate, private sphere
of our affective identities. It is perhaps no coincidence that we associate the idea of an overwhelming passion with
the notion of “losing one’s head”. The extravagant amplification of the self image at the cost of the surrounding reality
thus leads to a total unquestioning dependence on the models proposed by advertising, television and fashion, leading
to the creation of a deep-seated cultural, political and social catastrophe in recent times… The idea behind this
exhibition is that of a meeting between a hard, cutting imagery, no longer warm and malleable, though at times lethargic
and seductive…and the heads it has lost… It is imagery which is seductive in a certain sense, especially for those
who tend towards a life of extremes, of role reversal, in a dimension where art translates the concept of an exasperated
love for one’s own image into the image of someone else…the contrary of narcissism… Once more, contemporary
art offers up continuous references to that classical iconography which so often used the body as the key expression
of high tension, and as the protagonist of scenarios in which…one’s head is lost… and ever more shall be so.
23.03.2021
too big or too small to be perceived through human senses… All said and done, reality may be considered as an involuntarily
imaginary journey… Losing one’s head…A thrilling, overwhelming, romantic sensation; one of those situations
which you would like to take away with you only to melt into the sunset. Losing one’s head… A multifaceted
phenomenon, a series of “accidents”, of emotions, of incursions into a series of “visions” of the contemporary world,
held together only by the common threads of a romantic, sweetly exaggerated dimension. Romanticism is not the problem;
it is merely a symptom of a new point of view, of a foreign, alien, disarming point of view. Heads and statuettes
and disguises and wounds and references…and once again, dreams and visions and situations and tensions. A
warm collection of romantic artists, an original mechanism of juxtaposing threads which make up a delicate interplay
of crossovers, creating an overall framework which produces a particular effect reminiscent of a neo-Gothic building,
popping up in the most unexpected landscapes, and highlighting a disapproving gaze cast over the language of passion.
This is a visual adventure undertaken with the awareness that the modern age is characterised by mass tourism
and package trips. Yet this is a voyage with no clear destination, an interesting way of approaching different forms
of reality. Losing one’s head is a romantic “malaise” in which anxiety and happiness are mingled, just as fear and pleasure,
entropy and catharsis are, along with a whole host of visual relics. Faces, actions and situations which react to
each other like chemical compounds, an enchantment, a charm, a chant… Reasons and explanations and motivations
are blown away into tiny splinters, fragments of emotion, glimpses of intimacy which may be seen in the dark, for it
is in the dark that one starts to dream…to lose one’s head. Molecules bind to form links, dissolving matter, living
through the creation of objects, events, places, gestures, dreams, natural or synthetic worlds. Everything is translated
into a vague sense of restlessness, driving the soul to flee beyond the boundaries of space and time. Like the typical
role of the outlaw willing to break any law be it human or divine, or the “poet of the damned” who re-evaluates the
sphere of the emotions, of irrationality, of passion. Like a poetic narrative. Extremely complex images with romantic
undertones; fascinating, haunting images with numerous subjects: women and faces and skulls and much-loved
heroes, lovers and crowns of thorns and hearts and a knife and flowers and…The classic romantic repertory which
comes down to one single story of love, of coming together, of overcoming. A love song sung by a chorus, by a series
of images, by losing one’s head. One of the most characteristic traits of romanticism in this exhibition is the underlining
of the passionate and instinctive side of the works chosen. These are works which have always brought about
continuous disruption: it’s a romantic reading of beauty. Yet the relationship between the notion of beauty and the
masses of aesthetes is not as direct or as automatic as one might think. It passes through a social illness, documented
and studied for a number of decades, known as narcissism. This mental ailment plays a role in contemporary affectivity
comparable to that of hysteria and neurosis in Freud’s day. Its characteristic feature is the supremacy of the image
over reality in all fields of public and private communication. Obviously, as soon as the elaboration and control of the
image becomes one’s underlying preoccupation, any notion of abstraction or critical thought falls by the wayside. In
actual fact, narcissism is not love of self at all; the shift of importance towards one’s own image is made at the cost
of completely quashing one’s individual existence and reality. And thus while contemporary narcissism entails a complete
negation of one’s own affective identity, these images serve as genuine inroads into the intimate, private sphere
of our affective identities. It is perhaps no coincidence that we associate the idea of an overwhelming passion with
the notion of “losing one’s head”. The extravagant amplification of the self image at the cost of the surrounding reality
thus leads to a total unquestioning dependence on the models proposed by advertising, television and fashion, leading
to the creation of a deep-seated cultural, political and social catastrophe in recent times… The idea behind this
exhibition is that of a meeting between a hard, cutting imagery, no longer warm and malleable, though at times lethargic
and seductive…and the heads it has lost… It is imagery which is seductive in a certain sense, especially for those
who tend towards a life of extremes, of role reversal, in a dimension where art translates the concept of an exasperated
love for one’s own image into the image of someone else…the contrary of narcissism… Once more, contemporary
art offers up continuous references to that classical iconography which so often used the body as the key expression
of high tension, and as the protagonist of scenarios in which…one’s head is lost… and ever more shall be so.
23.03.2021