Pisa, contemporary art returns to Santa Maria della Spina with exhibition by Ivorian Brice Esso

The exhibition Les enfants de l’homme (The Children of Man), by Ivorian artist Brice Esso (Dabou, 1991), curated by Annalisa Bugliani and Alessandro Romanini, is currently underway in Pisa, in the church of Santa Maria della Spina, which is thus once again hosting contemporary art exhibitions. Promoted by The Project Space of Pietrasanta in collaboration with Over the Real and the Municipal Administration of Pisa, it was conceived specifically for the church spaces and will remain open to the public until Oct. 16.

The Ivorian artist in consultation with the curators, has chosen to respect and enhance the magnificent spaces of the house of worship, designing an installation composed of sculptures of various sizes, in marble, that align with the central vertical axis of the volumes, guiding the visitor to the contemporary discovery of the works and the place, an admirable example of Pisan Gothic.

Brice Esso is universally recognized as one of the most interesting young artists on the international scene and is characterized by a pronounced eclecticism and a heightened interest in techniques and materials, which have led him to express himself with various techniques and media, such as photography, drawing, fashion design and, of course, sculpture.

After studying economics in the United States, still in North America, he delved into the study of photography and craftsmanship of various materials and then enrolled at the prestigious New York Academy of Art, where he earned a master’s degree in drawing and continued with the study of sculpture. it was his passion for sculpture that led him to Carrara to further his study of the techniques passed down from generation to generation for centuries in marble working, which he later supplemented with experimentation in bronze sculpture.

Esso’s works are in fact the singular fruit of a mixture of influences ranging from African art (Ife sculptures are an oft-present reference) to the Renaissance, intersecting the study of 16th-century Italian stone sculptural workmanship but also that found in Egypt since antiquity and the modeling of clay typical of the tradition of the ancient continent and the West.

“The sculptural installation, ’The Sons of Man,’ conceived for the exhibition in Pisa,” Annalisa Bugliani and Alessandro Romanini explain, "represents another important stage in the artist’s aesthetic research, which has focused since his youthful years on a continuous analysis of his own origins, on identity in the light of his African roots and his cosmopolitan dimension as an artist, on the phenomenon of diaspora and on the questioning of stereotypes related to race and religion.

For the artist, what have come to be known as ’Baby Heads,’ are representations of an idea or even ’psychological self-portraits,’ skillfully reworking the iconographies of African masks and especially their symbolic codes often the subject of stereotypes in the West, but,“ the two curators conclude, ”part of an unrelenting anthropological research conducted by an Ivorian artist on his native country, its characteristics and contradictions.

For all information, you can call +39 3334191734 or email info@theprojectspace.it.

Pisa, contemporary art returns to Santa Maria della Spina with exhibition by Ivorian Brice Esso

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