We wait: Marco Neri's intervention for the Aurelia→SUD project.

Tenth stage for the Aurelia→SUD project, the program of “artist signs” that Gabriele Landi has been carrying out since September 2021: this time, intervening on the sign of Landi’s studio in Arcola (La Spezia) at Via Aurelia Sud 19, from June 25 to August 27, is Marco Neri (Forlì, 1968), who proposes a sign with the inscription Aspettiamo. A canvas made very quietly, during the first lockdown of 2020, which had been in the studio “waiting” for three years now, as Neri himself recounted.

“I had just moved my house, studio, and warehouse in late 2019 to Salento, and it took me a few months before I felt ’at me’ again, at home in short,” the artist explained. "And once everything was settled, with the pandemic that we were the first in Europe to have to deal with on a national level, that period - until then unthinkable - in which one could no longer move from home was triggered. For months and months... So I knew no better than to start painting again like there was no tomorrow, first all the blank canvases I already had in the studio and then also all the available, large and then very white walls of the back terrace. In spite of the palpable drama of those days - in which a very heavy ’infodemic’ was spreading in parallel - all we could do, since there was not even a glimpse of vaccines, was to stay indoors and ’wait.’ So I wanted to try to have fun anyway by expressing it literally. Let’s wait today for me has become emblematic of that period, but also of all the self-imposed lockdowns that painting often requires."

Marco Neri is no stranger to this singular means of expression: he had already made a number of signs, sometimes placed directly at the entrance, sometimes translated onto different materials or media while the original remained displayed only inside. “I have to admit,” Neri concludes, “that the proposal to make the hypothetical sign for an open space only in theory immediately sparked a certain interest in me.... In general, I believe that certain aspects, so subtly mental and therefore disarming, free and unusual, are made of a substance that only art can fully touch and express. After all, everything always and only happens in the eyes of the beholder, if he somehow notices it. And the Aurelia→SUD project seems to me a small, harmless and valuable challenge in this sense.”

Marco Neri, a graduate of the State Institute of Art in Forlì and the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna in 1992, began exhibiting in the second half of the 1980s. From the beginning, the artist’s attitude is markedly marked by the recovery of painting. In 1987 he passed selections while still attending the Istituto di “Arte and made his debut among the young Italian artists of ”Indagine ’87“ at Palazzo Re Enzo, Bologna; the following year he was among the winners of the ”Premio F. P. Michetti“ in Francavilla a mare (1988). He subsequently participated in numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad, including ”Intercity Uno“ at the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa in Venice (1990); ”Premio Campigna“ , Santa Sofia di Romagna (1990); ”Changing of the Guard“ at Studio d’Arte Cannaviello, Milan (1995); ”Martyrs and Saints“ at Galleria L’Attico, Rome (1996); and ”Painting“ at Castello di Rivara, Turin (1997). This was followed by ”Figuration“ at the Rupertinum Museum in Salzburg and the Museion in Bolzano (1999/2000), ”Futurama“ at the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato (2000) and the ”Premio Michetti - Differenti prospettive in Pittura“ at the F. P. Michetti Museum in Francavilla a mare (2000). In 2001 he held a solo exhibition (with Andrea Salvino) at the Spazio Aperto of the Galleria d’Arte Moderna in Bologna and in the same year, at the invitation of Harald Szeemann, he participated in the 49th Edition of the Venice Biennale ”Platea dell’Umanità“ . Since 2001, he has combined his artistic activity with that of Lecturer in Painting first at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ravenna, then in Chromatology and Painting Techniques and Technologies at the Academy of Fine Arts in Foggia and again in Painting at the Biennial Specialistic Course at the Academy of Fine Arts in Lecce, where he currently teaches. Major solo exhibitions include: ”Rinverdire il classico“ and ”Sostenere lo sguardo“ at the Fabjbasaglia Gallery in Rimini (in 1996 and 1998); ”Skyline“ and ”Travel“ at the Haus-Schneider Gallery in Karlsruhe (1998 and 2000); ”Windows 99“ at the Image Gallery of the Municipal Museums in Rimini and at the Hübner Gallery in Frankfurt (1999); ”Come into my room“ at the Hilger/Artlab Gallery in Vienna (2000); ”I Space“ at the Alberto Peola Gallery in Turin (2002); ”Malerei“ at the DiözesanMuseum in Munich (2002); ”Mirabilandia + Persian Library“ at the Museum of ”Furniture“ in Russi (2003); ”No Dogma“ at the Emilio Mazzoli Gallery in Modena (2004); ”Mars Black“ at the Lucas Schoormans Gallery in New York (2006); ”Omissis“ at Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci in Prato (2006); ”Underworld“ at Galleria Alfonso Artiaco in Naples (2010); ”Giardini“ at Galleria Pack in Milan (2011); ”Passante incrociato“ at Centro Arti Visive della Fondazione Pescheria in Pesaro (2012); ”Marcobaleno“ at Galleria Alfonso Artiaco in Naples (2014); ”I giardini di marco“ at MuseoLaboratorio in Città Sant’Angelo (2015); ”#studiolacittà“ (with Luca Pancrazzi) at Studio la Città in Verona (2016); ”Materia grigia“ (with Leonardo Pivi) at Imperfettolab/art in Longiano (2019); and ”Di scooter de pictura,“ at AplusB Gallery in Brescia (2021). In 2021 he won the first edition of the National Prize for Painting ”Osvaldo Licini" and held a solo show in the halls of the museum of the same name in Ascoli Piceno (2021/2022). Since 2019 he has been living and working in Lecce.

We wait: Marco Neri's intervention for the Aurelia→SUD project.

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