Evidence of Contemporary Disquiet

The Goethe – Institut in Naples is pleased to present the exhibition:

Evidence of Contemporary Disquiet
Curated by Davide Di Maggio

Eija-Liisa Ahtila / Günter Brus / Enzo Cucchi / Berlinde De Bruyckere / Giorgio De Chirico / Angus Fairhurst / Nan Goldin / Sandra Hauser /Jörg Immendorff / Mark Manders / Giovanni Manfredini / Fabio Mauri /Jonathan Meese / Gina Pane / Evan Penny / Andrea Salvino / Markus Schinwald / Dash Snow / Francesca Woodman

At a time when aesthetic canons have changed radically, a time in which our life flows in a semi-permanent state of anesthesia from joy, pain, from the images that “gush” at a frenzied and continuous rhythm, this exhibition intends to put in place a strong resistance, in order not to be, in turn, metabolized into an ephemeral form that is foreign to it.
It intends to bring back, through the senses, a high level perception that does not involve looking, but seeing and feeling.
The works, scattered in the beautiful spaces of the Church of San Giuseppe delle Scalze, are endowed with absolute forms and meanings; they are not symbolic, they are born of the artists’ need not to create some fleeting simulacra, but to give shape to a new beauty in the unreality surrounding us.
The intent of this exhibition is not so much to reveal the works, but the artists themselves as central reference points, to allow the visitor to come as close as possible to the dark side, while preserving the inevitably hidden and elusive part that is present in each work.
Art must take on the responsibility and, why not, the authority, of creating an opposition, an effective counter-offensive with respect to a given end. As small as it might be, the sign of the artist must always be charged with a new, positive and profound energy regarding life’s ephemeral nature.