Freedom Fighters - The Eternal Quest for FREEDOM.

Once again this year The National Archaeological Museum of Sperlonga returns to the dialogue between ancient and modern with the solo exhibition of Danilo Ambrosino, curated by Mimma Sardella with the collaboration of the Lazio Regional Museums Directorate, headed by Stefano Petrocchi, and the museum's director, Cristiana Ruggini.
"Freedom Fighters" is Danilo Ambrosino's daring men's eternal quest for freedom. Images of the dark giants, imprisoned in two-dimensional spaces, stand on the white walls of the Museum's imposing central hall and, circulating around the perimeter, face comparison with monumental Roman groups from the imperial era. The large paintings enter the site of the most famous emigrant in the history of Humanity: Oùtis, or Nobody, as the Greek hero according to the narrator Homer, appealed before the mortal danger of Polyphemus.
With the alternation of whites and blacks, in which everything is absorbed or everything is reflected, the black giants, depicted as icons of the plastic art of archeological memory, thus evoke ancient myths that are reflected in timeless stories until they reach our own of time, stories of a humanity struggling to overcome prejudice, discrimination, striving to achieve a homogeneous and harmonious perfection of life.
The conversation between the ancient and the contemporary in Danilo Ambrosino's works takes place without fragments, creating the understanding already experienced in the exhibition on Gladiators held two years ago at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples, whose director, Paolo Giulierini, is thanked for his contribution to this new project at the Sperlonga Museum with the videos made for the Neapolitan exhibition.

Opening on Saturday, September 16, 5 p.m.

Danilo Ambrosino was born in July 1964 in Naples, where he lives and works. Attracted by colors since childhood, already as a child he began painting toys and CocaCola bottles, transforming them into new games with Pop imagery. After graduating from high school, he continued his university studies, which, however, he abandoned for good in 2007 to devote himself full-time to the family business. The company's workshop soon became his first atelier, beginning to manipulate industrial waste by changing its use into aesthetic value: a true activity of recovering the intrinsic value of even perished matter, transforming its purpose from being servile to serving another purpose: aistesis, aesthetics, which mediates content and form. His main intent becomes to be the creator of a second life offered to salvaged objects as he refines a personal painting technique in which monochrome, or the comparison of two primary colors, takes over.
Solo exhibitions
2009 - first solo exhibition in his home with the intention of making full use of his private spaces.
2010 - transforms his home into a Home Gallery and founds DAFNA with architect Anna Fresa, with the aim of disseminating contemporary art in a space free from institutional destinations.
2011 - devotes himself completely to contemporary art as an artist and gallery owner. Travels and finds inspiration in Paris, which becomes a frequent destination and occasion for exchanges with French galleries and artists. In 2010 he exhibits at Atelier 7 in Boulevard Raspail and in 2011 he participates in the "Cutlog" fair in the Bourse de Commerce.
2012 - DAFNA instructs an Open Project for a series of exchanges with other Italian galleries and exhibits in Turin and Rome.
2014/2015 - critic Valerio Dehò curates the exhibition "Beyond Black" at DAFNA gallery and "Sensation of Light" at Galleria Stefano Forni in Bologna.
2019 - participates in the group show "Chorus" at M.A.C. in Milan, curator Valerio Dehò.
2021 - after the closure for the DAFNA Pandemic, the artist devotes himself only to his production. He exhibits at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples the exhibition "Leib Il Corpo Vivente," curator Olga Scotto di Vettimo: a corpus of large-format works that have the human body as their subject, set in dialogue with the major exhibition on "The Gladiators." Closing in September, in collaboration with MAN-Na, the exhibition moves to the Museo Archeologico Campano in Capua.
2021- begins a fruitful collaboration with art historian Filomena Maria (Mimma) Sardella that will lead him to exhibit in Capri, at Palazzo Vanalesti-Fondazione Cerio, first the exhibition "Controverso," from May 27 to September 30. The following year 2022-in June, he curates its exhibition "Kloros Fullon," in which the theme becomes the exploration of Nature nourished by the golden Sun, through the botanical species "that have come up from the arid, yet beneficent earth" (op.cit), spread in the Mediterranean. Finally, in September 2022, at the European Parliament in Brussels the exhibition "Freedom Fighters," inspired by the theme of gladiators.
2022 - his artistic research immediately returns to focus on botany: on a golden background he paints plants, in the foreground, that become new resilient heroes to climate change, an exhibition of large-scale works "A Treasure of Light and Leaves," curated by journalist Alessandra Pacelli, contextualized at the Botanical Garden of Naples, with UniNa and Fai, qhen in November he moves to the Botanical Garden of Palermo, in collaboration with the University Museum Pole of Palermo.
2023 - "A Treasure of Light and Leaves," is exhibited at the National Archaeological Museum in Naples from March to May, on the occasion of the opening of the Vanella Garden. On May 29, with new paintings on the theme, the exhibition participated in the exhibition "Alexander the Great and the East."