Omar Hassan's art comes to Palermo for the first time with a brand new exhibition

The Royal Palace in Palermo is hosting until Oct. 1, 2023, the unprecedented exhibition PUNCTUM, conceived and designed by Italian-Egyptian artist Omar Hassan (Milan, 1987) with the Frederick II Foundation. After exhibiting in Miami and New York, via London, Berlin and Milan, Hassan’s art comes to Palermo for the first time.

PUNCTUM is the vital energy of the artist that makes each work of art unique. An exhibition that aims to explore the interstitial space between classical and contemporary, connecting past and future. A tribute to the “value of the individual as part of a serene and harmonious whole.” It is in this direction that the Map of Palermo, a site-specific work created by the artist with 8928 canister caps, hand-painted one by one, is set. With an anti-hierarchical approach, Omar Hassan has developed a focus on the theme of places, to be understood as true centers of gathering and sharing. “In big cities,” Hassan notes, “there is a clear distinction between the center and the suburbs. In Palermo, the center and some not-so-easy neighborhoods are almost adjacent. I think this is a first symptom of integration.”

“Through a dialogue between the complexity of places and the work of art,” said Gaetano Galvagno, president of the Fondazione Federico II, “we propose a new narrative and welcome one of the witnesses of the art of our time. A precise cultural will that the Fondazione Federico II wants to support in order to initiate a dialogue between a space of memory and contemporary art, but also to promote the works of an artist engaged in a production marked by a strong energy, vitality and action, capable of also welcoming the tradition of classical art, to reread it, and offer a remodulation.”

“PUNCTUM at the Royal Palace,” added Patrizia Monterosso, director general of the Fondazione Federico II, “wants to be the gaze of art on the way. The further nourishment of that energy that makes the artist like life itself. The exhibition stems from an authentic dialogue between Omar and the Frederick II Foundation, which once again rejects pre-packaged exhibitions. Omar Hassan is an example of tolerance and representation of art in the true sense of the word, and as such he integrates perfectly with the soul of this palace, a well-executed laboratory of history, creating a connection between the past and the future.”

On the occasion of the exhibition, Hassan created as many as seven site-specific works out of fifteen, the result of the suggestions that stimulated his artistic impulse at the Royal Palace: the Map of Palermo, ∞ Lights, Self-Portrait, Pax, Triloquy, No Filter and the Ninth IX. The latter indicates “an infinite illumination, the light of light, illuminating darkness and igniting hope.” It was placed in the exhibition alongside the large work ∞Lights, which dominates at the back of the exhibition space, created by the artist on the occasion of the Palermo exhibition to place himself in dialogue with the great spirituality of the Palatine Chapel through rebirth and regeneration.

His version of the Belvedere Torso is conceived in strong tension with the work ∞Lights. It is as if that muscular tension of the Torso wants to further renew itself in the dynamism of a further path that needs to be followed. Pax, on the other hand, is a sculpture that praises Peace: it is a bold reinterpretation of the pregnant Nike of Samothrace. "I had been thinking about this work for years, but it needed a place like the Royal Palace in Palermo. Nike Praegnans is a symbol of Victory, but also of Freedom in a world characterized by contradictions and wars. Nike renews its representation and symbolizes Peace," the artist stressed during the presentation of the exhibition.

“We wanted Omar Hassan,” said Gaetano Galvagno, President of the Federico II Foundation, “because he is a witness to the art of our time. We as the Fondazione Federico II have the daily responsibility of keeping contemporary a palace that is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and that already in the past was marked by a creative impulse that was always forward-looking. I believe that, from his point of view, Omar Hassan has accepted the challenge for the same reason. Palazzo Reale is, in fact, the ideal place to bring past, present and future into dialogue and express his art full of action and energy, capable of being contemporary while welcoming and reworking the tradition of classical art.”

"Punctum is the impatience with lazily accepting an idea of art that gives up expressing itself energetically in order to delve into a creative experimentalism that becomes a critical lever to open our eyes to reality,“ commented Patrizia Monterosso, Director General of the Fondazione Federico II. ”The title of the exhibition stems from a perspective shared by the Fondazione Federico II with the artist to conceive of exhibitions as a reaction to an alarming trend of art’s surrender to that density that no longer touches deeply."

Also on display are two works from the Breaking Through series, linked to the synthesis of the gesture, where the fist is charged with all the valences of a discipline in a single sign: “I’m not punching to destroy, I’m creating!” As is well known, for years Omar’s artistic interests were complemented by the discipline of boxing, a sport he was nevertheless forced to abandon for health reasons. This flow of art and life transits with original and multi-layered outcomes in his production, which accommodates a marked autobiographical component, from the content choices of the works to the gradually elaborated technique.

Omar Hassan

Omar

Omar Hassan

Omar Hassan’s art is in constant experimentation and explores the interstitial space between classical and contemporary, connecting past, present and future. Concept and action underlie his every artistic gesture. Obsessed with time, Omar Hassan places at the basis of his research synthesizing pictorial gestures capable of tracing it, enchanted by the great masters such as Fontana, Pollock and Manzoni, who precisely in the energy of artistic gestures encapsulate a new philosophy or concept. Omar Hassan’s areas of expression become true “themes” marked by experimentalism on color and gesture: the fist in the Breaking Through series, which made him world-famous as an artist-boxer, the spray of cans in the Injections and Lights series.

There is no distinction between painting and sculpture. Hassan uses color to capture the audience’s attention, but it is behind the color that the true meaning of the work lies. The use of canvas is perfectly in tune with the phenomenon of the crisis of easel painting. The lexical layering and the overcoming of hierarchies between painting and sculpture represent the stylistic signature of his production, which is well rooted in ancient art and art-historical tradition, but leaning toward the future and the search for the new.

The exhibition catalog, published by the Fondazione Federico II, contains an exclusive dialogue with Omar Hassan, renamed “Inside Omar.” An excerpt of the dialogue, in a video-interview version, is projected at the entrance to the exhibition and accompanies the visitor in getting to know the artist and his art. Born and raised on the outskirts of Milan, Hassan tells how he managed to get up from one of those suburban benches where other potential talents remained unexpressed, generating only “sitting dreams.” But “in my house,” he reveals, “not bringing results was equivalent to being a failure. When you fall, in boxing as in life, you have to get right back up.”

Biography

Omar Hassan (Milan, Italy, 1987), an Italian mother and Egyptian father, grew up in the midst of two different cultures, and this sparked in him a deep curiosity about the new, the different and the outside world. A graduate of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan, the conceptual influence breathed during his studies has marked the artist’s modus operandi in the gestation of each project: the idea, the thought, the concept is at the basis of every artistic gesture. The work must therefore always be characterized by an aesthetic autonomy and the artist’s unconscious that is naturally generated in the course of execution. Obsessed and enchanted by the synthesizing pictorial gestures of the great masters such as Fontana, Pollock and Manzoni, the artist also places synthesizing pictorial gestures at the basis of his research, capable of encapsulating and telling an entire philosophy, an entire culture or a new concept. This is how a spray spray, the first real breath of the spray can, encompasses the signifier of the entire Street Art culture. The series titled Injections (among the most famous works, the 256 cover of La Lettura del Corriere della Sera) and the Lights series where the artist engages in painting Light on canvas were born. These gestures Omar also brought them into his dialogues between painting and sculpture in the Institutional Exhibition at the Chiesetta della Misericordia in Venice during the 54th Art Biennale. The sculptures blended in with the paintings, but also with the space, because the artist likes to work and create site-specific works, mixing them and following the original essence of the space. Breaking Through is another series related to the synthesis of gesture; the fist is charged with all the valences of a discipline in a single sign. Boxing is thus celebrated in a series of 121 of large canvases (in the black and white background version), all unique pieces: 121 for each series. 121 is the number of rounds played by the artist during his boxing career. The artist wanted to enhance the conceptual aspect of the sport: “Boxing is the metaphor of life par excellence, each of us has his crosses and has to fight, if we fall to the ground we have to get back up, we have breaks, in a corner, but then we are forced to come back to fight, each of us is the boxer of our own experience.”

PUNCTUM can be visited Monday through Saturday from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. (last admission). Sundays and holidays from 8:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. (last admission.

For info visit www.punctumomarhassan.it

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Omar Hassan's art comes to Palermo for the first time with a brand new exhibition

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