2017 exhibitions

The exhibition "Omar Galliani – Lorenzo Puglisi | Caravaggio, la verità nel buio" opens on the 14th December 2016, with two important institutions such as the Polo Museale Regionale d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea of Palermo and the Pio Monte della Misericordia of Naples united for the first time in a planning network, backed by the support of the Municipality of Naples, of the Council Department for Culture and Tourism and with the Matronage of the Donnaregina Foundation for contemporary art (Madre Museum). Curated by Raffaella Resch and Maria Savarese, with an essay by the critic Mark Gisbourne, this show was set up in order to pay homage to two contemporary artists inspired by Caravaggio, Omar Galliani and Lorenzo Puglisi: the two artists trace the journey of the Lombard painter through the most significant places in Palermo and Naples in the last four years of his life, fleeing from the death sentence pending on him.

The works exhibited at Palermo and in Naples are purposely created for the occasion by the two artists: four large works, furnished with drawings, paintings and preparatory studies. Omar Galliani presents an after Caravaggio of large dimensions and Lorenzo Puglisi exhibits a new painting, Nativity (oil on canvas, 300 x 200cm) dedicated to the Palermo Nativity by Caravaggio;

in Naples the works are placed in direct dialogue with the Caravaggio masterpiece The seven acts of Mercy, a painting commissioned by the Pio Monte della Misericordia in 1607 and conserved there since that date. On one hand there is the period of time that Merisi spent in Palermo in 1609 painting the canvas dedicated to the Nativity with St. Lawrence and St. Francis of Assisi and hunged in the Oratorio of San Lorenzo, a masterpiece which was stolen in 1969; on the other hand, there is the Neapolitan period, when he painted some of his most evocative works, like The Martyrdom of Saint Ursula, The Flagellation of Christ and The seven acts of Mercy.

The aim is to bring together inspiration, references and counterpoints which encompasses the work of Omar Galliani and Lorenzo Puglisi, compares their aesthetics and recognizes their great debt to the great master of the Baroque, Caravaggio, the undisputed master of light, the first painter to model figures chiselling their features, making them emerge from the darkness in a dramatic illumination. The main subject of his canvases is light, which appears from the darkness. Or, we can say, darkness perforated by light. In this simple and strong antithesis between light and dark lies the research of Galliani and Puglisi, as if they have made Caravaggio the origin of their aesthetic experience. The contrast between light and shade puts us in front of other antinomies posed by the two artists in a dynamic relationship: the use of pencil on light background in Galliani discloses the bodies, consisting of an aggregate of dark matter; while in Puglisi the brushstrokes of bright colour in a black background reveal the light hidden by darkness, creating fragments of visible reality.

Light and shade as appearance and disappearance; the epiphany of the figures occurs as in the Caravaggio scene where the angel descends from heaven, the background dark, cancelled out by the density of black. The most intimate being of man, of his existential condition, appear in a crucial, instantaneous freeze-frame. The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with introductions by Valeria Li Vigni, director of the Museum Riso in Palermo, and Alessandro Pasca di Magliano, superintendent of the Pio Monte della Misericordia in Naples.

Opening: December 14th | h. 6,30 – 9 pm

December 14, 2016 - February 2, 2017

MUSEO RISO | CAPPELLA dell' INCORONAZIONE

Via dell'incoronazione, 13 90134, Palermo

Ph :+ 39 (0)91 587717

poloartemoderna.pa@regione.sicilia.it

Opening: April 1st| h. 6,30 – 9 pm

April 1 - May 1, 2017

PIO MONTE della MISERICORDIA

Via dei Tribunali, 253 80139, Napoli

Ph: +39 (0)81 297108

segreteria@piomontedellamisericordia.it