Marco Cingolani

Galleria In Arco, Turin
Through July 14

Marco Cingolani’s pictorial studies revolve around History, as examined through charismatic figures such as Jesus, the Pope, Van Gogh, Verdi, and Casanova. Digging up the foundation stones of our culture serves to highlight the signs of its decadence, the drama of a future marked by war and destruction.

Seen from this point of view, painting is not a means, but definitely an end: to produce art is to demand liberty for creation, imagination, and the expression of emotions, in an attempt to change the course of history. These paintings suggest this very idea: the desire to claim a sense of being and to recognize universal values in the acceptance of the Nietzschean concept of the Dionysian.

The thread that ties this show together is made explicit in its title, I miei migliori amici (My Best Friends). Cingolati confirms that, fundamentally, it is about the same figures that constantly recur in his thoughts and work: Friedrich Nietzsche, Maria Callas, Oscar Wilde; all characters who were unable to take control of their own lives, kissed by success but condemned to tragic ends by a hostile destiny. They represent the bond which conceptually connects the past and the present through the flow of memory, in order to transform them into images on canvas.

But, beyond these symbolic figures, there are also other friends: Omar, for example, with whom he shared experiences of life, and more recently, death, but who remains alive in his dreams: putting together a musical group, wandering in search of new experiences. The paintings, such as I congiurati del colore (The color conspiracy), La passeggiata del colore (The walk of color), or Il colore in riparazione (Color in Repair), were all created in 2001.

Their titles point to the importance of the chromatic dimension in the artist’s work. In this case, the dominating color is red, bright to the point of being aggressive, which gives the picture a scenographic consistency and induces the viewer into a twofold examination of the works: first, staying in the center of the room, one is caught up in the chromatic vortex; then, approaching a single painting, one recognizes little by little signs and figures, so closely intertwined that they create a dense and mobile universe in which memories become fragments of an interior story.




Tiziana Conti
Translation by Amanda Coulson