Federico Guida's painted crosses between sacred and profane on display in Naples

From Oct. 24 to Nov . 7, 2024, the exhibition Federico Guida. Arbor, curated by journalist and art critic Mimmo di Marzio. The exhibition is part of the fourth edition of Art Days - Naples Campania, a widespread and collective event for contemporary art in the region held Oct. 21-27, and is promoted and produced by THE BANK ETS Foundation - Institute for Studies on Contemporary Painting in Bassano del Grappa, the first national nonprofit institution dedicated exclusively to contemporary painting.

The exhibition, named after the Latin root of Tree, explores the dialogue between transcendence and humanity, science, religiosity and history, through large works, oil paintings on linen applied on wood, that interweave the values of the sacred and the profane. Six pictorial crosses placed in the side chapels of the former convent investigate the symbolism of the familytree and represent the human condition, that is, the search for the continuous balance between the ascending verticality toward the mystery of the divine and the earthly horizontality of the everyday and vanitas.

The exhibition thus focuses on the formal element of the cross, which recalls the medieval shaped crucifixes of Giotto and Cimabue, reinterpreted to create works that become narrative surfaces where symbolism and narrative, abstract and figuration, intertwine.

“In each work,” the curator writes, “strong contrasts coexist that stir deep feelings: the suffering portrait of a mother, the rawness of outraged flesh, the trompe l’oeil illusion of wood, the abstract torments of canvas sublimate into cosmic images, galaxies, eclipses, nebulae, creating a tension toward the Absolute and mutating the installations into totemic representations of existence.”

The opening, to be held Thursday, Oct. 24, at 6 p.m., will be followed at 8:30 p.m. by the performance Principessa, a staged reading by Neapolitan actress Iaia Forte of the black fable written by Mimmo di Marzio, accompanied by live music by composer Alessandro Cerino.

The exhibition is open free to the public Monday through Friday 10 a.m.-6:30 p.m., Saturday 10 a.m.-12:30 p.m., Sunday closed. Special opening on Friday, Nov. 1, 10 a.m.-3 p.m.

For information: www.fondazionethebank.org - www.artdaysnapolicampania.com

Federico Guida's painted crosses between sacred and profane on display in Naples

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