In Ascoli Piceno, a monographic exhibition traces the themes of Omar Galliani. Dedicated an unprecedented section to the Sibyl

From January 14 to April 30, 2024, the Palazzo dei Capitani in Ascoli Piceno will host the exhibition Omar Galliani. The Echo of the Sibyl, curated by Stefano Papetti and promoted by the Zoomart cultural association under the patronage of the Marche Region, the Province of Ascoli Piceno and the Municipality of Ascoli Piceno. More than forty works divided into seven thematic rooms will be exhibited in order to pay homage to the master of drawing Omar Galliani.

Anunprecedented section created specifically by Galliani for this Ascoli exhibition, and which takes its title from it, is inspired by the myth of the Sibilla Picena, also known as the Sibilla Appenninica, an identity image of the territory: among the peaks of the Sibillini Mountains dwelt a woman of extraordinary beauty, an interlocutor between heaven and earth, between the divine and the human. The artist’s celestial poetics, linked to infinite skies and distant universes of stars, echoes on the plates in the exhibition. Galliani’s sibyls are graphite women with narrowed eyes, caught in the profound moment of meditation. On the face of these enigmatic figures appears, engraved like a tattoo of red pigment, the letter a: the beginning of prophecy, the origin of everything.

The connection with the Marche region also emerges clearly in a second section of the exhibition, “Raphaelesque and Other. Drawing is always on the move,” which hosts the cycle By and for Raphael: a series of works dedicated to Raphael and created in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when Galliani began teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino. The focus is on the reworking of themes and techniques from the art of the past, key concepts of Anachronism, a current theorized by Maurizio Calvesi and Italo Tomassoni, which the artist joined in 1983. A section that lends itself well to bring out a constant in Galliani’s work: by referring to the great masters of the Renaissance, the artist has given fulfillment to a natural inclination to drawing and graphic exercise, while distancing himself from tradition and revisiting its methods.

The “Inner Landscapes” section contains works inspired by real landscapes, perceptions of the external world now transformed into symbolic representations of inner worlds, and the “De rerum natura” section, inspired by the philosophical work of Lucretius, explores the connection between man and nature through the representation of two fundamental moments, death and rebirth. On the other hand, the part dedicated to “Blu oltremare”,which comes to life from the essence of the color blue, aims to evoke the sea and the sky, the illusion of an aerial and marine perspective dissolving into infinite shades. Then “Stolen Kisses / Covid 19,” made during the period of pandemic, intends to be a drawn filmography, which in addition to stimulating an emotional reflection on the period of physical isolation, wants to highlight the artist’s continuous and intense relationship with the world of cinema.

Finally, “Trajectories of Being” bears witness to one of Omar Galliani’s rare forays into the field of sculpture: in 1983, during his years of teaching at the Academy of Fine Arts in Urbino, he molded a sculpture in terracotta, from which bronze and stainless steel versions were born. In this work, a bow-crowned head prepares to shoot its ideas like arrows, once again into the infinite starry sky, in an eternal journey toward the horizon of the intellect.

“In these times of anguish over the fate of humanity plagued by uncontrollable diseases, environmental issues, and bloody political and religious contrasts,” writes curator Stefano Papetti, “Galliani’s work represents a stimulus to calm reflection and at the same time to action, sustained by a strategy based on logic, according to methods rooted in classical culture. There is no nostalgia for the past in Galliani’s works, but an awareness that we are heirs to an illustrious tradition that can still inspire and guide us in facing the challenges of the future.”

Image: Omar Galliani, The Echo of the Sibyl, detail (2023; black pencil and red pigment on panel)

In Ascoli Piceno, a monographic exhibition traces the themes of Omar Galliani. Dedicated an unprecedented section to the Sibyl

Warning: the translation into English of the original Italian article was created using automatic tools. We undertake to review all articles, but we do not guarantee the total absence of inaccuracies in the translation due to the program. You can find the original by clicking on the ITA button. If you find any mistake,please contact us.