Moris (Israel Meza Moreno) at Rolando Anselmi

Artist: Moris (Israel Meza Moreno)

Exhibition title: Caminando hacia el verdugo

Venue: Rolando Anselmi, Rome, Italy

Date: June 24 – September 30, 2023

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

Note: Text by Fernando Carabajal is available here

Rolando Anselmi is pleased to announce Caminando hacia el verdugo, the first solo exhibition by Moris (Israel Meza Moreno) at the gallery’s Rome venue.

A Mexican artist living in an area outside Mexico City run by the Cartel, Moris makes his work a space for analysis of the social and cultural complexity of his home territory. The exhibition starts with Bandera blanca, a canvas made from the bags used by the Banco de México to transport money, traces of which can still be seen. The same bags form the pages of the Enciclopedia del hambre Tomo I, the first part of a work conceived in four volumes. The three chapters of the encyclopaedia, each dedicated to a month in 2023, contain newspaper and magazine cuttings, a trace and testimony both of the hypocrisy of money and the daily episodes of violence. La Sovervia introduces the cycle exhibited on the lower floor, Los pecados capitales: as in Moris’ previous series of canvases, where urban and man-made landscapes metaphorically symbolise the portrait of a violent and deaf society, the seven works presented in the exhibition capture multiple episodes and actions that mark the earthly passage of man. Being represented are the seven deadly vices, another opportunity to study human conduct. The special technique of realization allows more than two hundred letter or A4 size prints to be assembled on each canvas. Intermingled in the three layers that make up each scene are photostories from the 1960s and 1970s, comic strips from the 1980s, images of the animal kingdom from encyclopedias worthy of the 1990s, and in the last odd one, the only one in black, are printed sixteenth-century engravings of the seven deadly sins by Pieter Brueguel. Exploiting imagery from the past and centuries-old depictions of man’s vices, Moris fixes on canvas the face of a humanity that has never been redeemed, which itself becomes the executioner along a path dense with errors and transgressions.

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno) (b. 1978, Mexico City, Mexico) lives and works in Mexico City. His works have been exhibited in museums and institutions such as: Stadtgalerie Saarbrücken (Saarbrücken, 2015), Sala de Arte Público Siqueiros (Mexico City, 2014), The Tiroche De Leon Collection (Miami, 2015), Museo Amparo (Puebla, 2015), Museo de Arte Carrillo Gil (Mexico City, 2015). Furthermore, his works are also featured in the permanent collection of: MoMA New York, MOCA Los Angeles, Coleccion Jumex and FEMSA Monterrey, Perez Art Museum in Miami. Moris took part to the 9th Havana Biennale, Havana, Cuba and to the 30th Bienal de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil.

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), Caminando hacia el verdugo, 2023, exhibition view at Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Rome, photo: Sebastiano Luciano

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), 2023, Bandera blanca, mixed media on canvas, photo: Sebastiano Luciano

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), 2023, Enciclopedia del Hambre Tomo I, mixed media on handmade book (90 pages/unique), photo: Sebastiano Luciano

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), 2022, La Sovervia, varnish and transfer on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, photo: Sebastiano Luciano

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), Caminando hacia el verdugo, 2023, exhibition view at Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Rome, photo: Sebastiano Luciano

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), 2022, La ira, varnish and transfer on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, photo: Sebastiano Luciano

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), 2022, La Gula, varnish and transfer on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, photo: Sebastiano Luciano

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), 2022, La Avaricia, varnish and transfer on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, photo: Sebastiano Luciano

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), 2022, La Lujura, varnish and transfer on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, photo: Sebastiano Luciano

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), 2022, La Desidia, varnish and transfer on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, photo: Sebastiano Luciano

Moris (Israel Meza Moreno), 2022, La Envidia, varnish and transfer on canvas, 150 x 200 cm, photo: Sebastiano Luciano