Of Earth, Water and Wind

Of land, water and wind
solo exhibition of Vincenzo Scolamiero
curated by Francesca Bottari

Inauguration Saturday, July 8, 2023 at 18.00

REGIONAL DIRECTORATE MUSEUMS OF LAZIO
National Etruscan Museum of Rocca Albornoz - mezzanine floor

Under the fourteenth-century vaults of the Rocca Albornoz, Vincenzo Scolamiero 's papers and large works-powerful images of a primal nature-are juxtaposed with a selection of Etruscan artifacts from which the artist drew reflections and suggestions. The exhibition investigates backwards into Scolamiero's vast production and opens up new research scenarios, revealing a thematic and technical continuity that adds value to a coherent expressive identity.
The National Etruscan Museum of Rocca Albornoz fromJuly 8, 2023 welcomes in the salon and mezzanine rooms the solo exhibition of Vincenzo Scolamiero, a Roman artist with extensive Italian and international exhibition experience and a professor of painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome.
The exhibition benefits from the patronage of the City of Viterbo - Department of Culture and Education and is realized in collaboration with the Academy ofFine Arts in Rome, the Edieuropa QUI contemporary art gallery in Rome and the Roberto Bilotti Ruggi d'Aragona Museum of Contemporary Art in Rende (CS).
Two forces are at work: on the one hand, the courage of the museum management, which opens the doors of the illustrious archaeological collection to a first exhibition of contemporary art; on the other, an artist who has always dedicated himself to pictorial experimentation - for figurative media and tools - and who here places himself at the service of the material and immaterial traces of the ancient world.
The exhibition does not have a strictly anthological imprint, but has gradually evolved as an internal and retrospective investigation of Scolamiero's decades-long work: a kind of backward journey, which, thanks to this process of interaction with place, has opened up new figurative perspectives, enriching the repertoire with new forms and spaces. The selection of museum pieces thus became part, with all the prudent delicacy that juxtapositions demand, of the exhibition idea.
The 4 sections include some 30 works, including large canvases and plates, as well as some papers and a selection of tree and stone fragments, which have always been poetic suggestions for Scolamiero.
In the vast works in the entrance hall, forms seem to engage in a struggle with the bowels of the earth and from there re-emerge in a titanic and poignant process. The second room grants respite to the eyes and soul with large canvases the color of the sky: open, airy and at the same time solid. The third nucleus opens to the passage of the wind, which impetuously confuses the forms and creeps between the clods and stones, finding temporary respite under the candid veils that Scolamiero has been arranging for years on the plane-boundary of his paintings, recomposing in a rational control every creative impulse.
In the last section, the dialogue with the Etruscan world intensifies. On the large formats, the earth releases the traces of its history in the mosses, damp and sulfurous waters that thicken its geological substance. Ancient clay comes back to life in the pictorial impasto, as the exchange between two such remote cultures becomes possible and opens up new frontiers of exploration and comparison.

Vincenzo Scolamiero teaches painting at the Department of Visual Arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome, the city where he lives and works. His works are held in important public and private collections. His first solo show was held in 1987 at the historic Al Ferro di Cavallo gallery in Rome. He later exhibited in relevant national and international spaces, including Rome (as well as several private galleries, Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Chiostro del Bramante, Gam, Macro), Milan, Venice, Bologna, Turin, Rimini, Treviso, New York, Seoul, Busan, Beijing, Fenghuang. He participated in the Rome Quadriennale (1996), the Venice Biennale (2011) and won the LXV Edition of the Michetti Prize (2014). In 2017 he collaborated with composer Silvia Colasanti ( video-scenography and images for the frontispiece and booklet of the Requiem Stringeranno nei pugni una cometa; 7 books-opera on the String Quartet Ogni cosa ad ogni cosa ha detto addio, Eos-Libri d'Artista editions by Piero Varroni in Rome). In 2019 the Carlo Bilotti Museum in Rome hosts a solo exhibition of his work entitled La declinante ombra, curated by Gabriele Simongini (Catalogo De Luca). In 2021/22 his exhibition Del silenzio e della trasparenza is held at the Palazzo Pubblico in Siena - Magazzini del Sale rooms and at the Fondazione Accademia Musicale Chigiana, curated by the Comune di Siena Assessorato alla Cultura and inner room Siena (Catalogo De Luca). In May 2022 he is the protagonist of one of Alberto Dambruoso's Critical Tuesdays. Since 1996 he has collaborated with the Edieuropa QUI arte contemporanea gallery in Rome.