Gianni Di Rosa at Rolando Anselmi

Artist: Gianni Di Rosa

Curated by: Davide Ferri

Venue: Rolando Anselmi, Berlin, Germany

Date: June 11 – July 17, 2021

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Rolando Anselmi, Berlin/Rome

Note: Text written by Davide Ferri is available here

Rolando Anselmi is pleased to announce Gianni Di Rosa first solo exhibition in the new gallery spaces in Rome, curated by Davide Ferri.

This project takes place from the idea of a convocation, real starting point to a more developed narrative level. The title Le Convocazioni refers to the sacred text of the Old Testament, Qohelet (“he who summons”). This convocation is addressed to the Twins D from the lords of the underworld: bothered by the noice of the ball game above their heads, they summon the two twins in order to let them play a match which is actually a trap. Therefore, in order to change their features and not being recognizable, the twins wear eyeless masks, whose orbits are empty holes, showing and yet not really unveiling themselves, in a play between presence and absence.

The exhibition space becomes a kind of subsoil from which ghostlike images emerge, deriving from a complex and stratified scenario, dense with stories and references,.

In this space it is possible to identify a segment of a larger path where images are re-presented as adhesive remains: this is the case of Cartavelina (re minore), final epilogue of a previous project. The iconography takes up a bas-relief in stone, located on the walls of a playground of the ancient Mayan civilization, where a kneeling figure emerges in front of a skull-shaped sphere, Totenkopf (after it touches the ground).

Central in the whole work, Gioco Cosmico, the starting point from which, through the child’s gesture, is triggered a generating movement. Identified beyond a circular shape (reference to a previous sculpture, The ring for the ball game) the child models the path in a sort of alignment. Furthermore, Gioco Cosmico is in turn contained in The eye is never satisfied to see, a face-mask whose eyes seems able to see.

Like a Matrioshka doll, the works stage a line-up where each one can include the others, but also where meanings, appearances and survivals keep following in a circular path. An inverted plot, where the end and the beginning correspond.

Gianni Di Rosa (b.1984, Modica), lives and works in Milan. Recent solo exhibitions include: Galerie Rolando Anselmi (Rome, 2021); Cabinet-Studiolo (Milan, 2019). Selected group shows include: GAM Galleria d’Arte Moderna (Turin, 2020); Galerie Rolando Anselmi (Atina, 2020); Festival Studi (Milan, 2017; 2015); Museo Riso (Palermo, 2015); Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Lissone (Lissone, 2013); Museo Gamec (Bergamo, 2011).