VisionQuesT Gallery Presents Arturo Delle Donne: Memes

GENOA.- Our culture seems, for some time now, compressed into an homologation nurtured by very few ideas from which it is difficult to see a broader horizon. Yet beneath the surface of appearance, there slither insights, thoughts, and reflections generating unexpected views that once again surprise us. To make them apparent, we have to look back at our past and dig deep until we see the winding most ancient roots, those that lie in the very origins of our culture when science and poetry were not opposed but fused into a single, intricate knowledge. If the myth is a kernel of truth wrapped in a cocoon not immediately obvious, only those who have the intellectual courage to investigate with a free spirit can grasp the final true meaning. The ancient ones knew it very well; they plunged their history in the magma of the myth and defended it with the intricate mystery of words. Today these words are approached and sometimes replaced by photography with its apparent clarity, with its subtle ambiguity, with its latent mystery.

This is exactly the material Arturo Delle Donne has worked with, by bringing out the pictures of the ones that for us are still myths or memes, that is to say entities that replicate our reference models, to use the terms theorised by the biologist Richard Dawkins who inspired the photographer. The extreme simplicity of presentation – a white background, almost no evidence of surroundings – serves to focus attention on the subjects, their magnetic gazes, their suggestive poses. A contemporary Jesus stretches his arms towards us wearing with the same elegance the crown of thorns and a pair of artfully ripped jeans. A dark Medea closes in on herself as if crushed by the uncontrollable passions that will always oppress her and an Eve displays with shameless pride, both the apple and the painful pregnancy to which she has condemned herself. Each character reminds us of the origins of strong emotions, the atavistic fears, the tension of ideals, the archetypes, but also of the way we read them today when we like to imagine that Mary comes from the East and Achilles wears camouflage pants. What is rather striking is the light gentleness of Psyche or Lucifer’s unyielding but seductive look, who still remembers having being an angel. Ulysses, however, remains the same as he prepares the raft which once again, he will challenge the prohibitions of the gods; almost annoyed by the presence of the photographer, he gazes at us as if to ask if we are ready to search with him for the extreme boundaries of our being men. Following his ancient, very modern appeal will be inevitable.

A degree in biology and a PhD in ecology, he begins his career as a photo reporter by publishing a range of services in specialized magazines such as People Travel, Underwater World, Aqua and Whitestar / National Geographic. While opening his Studio in Parma, he becomes interested in advertising and fashion. He has worked on several advertising campaigns and published in various national and international newspapers. In 2005, in collaboration with Solares Fondazione delle Arti in Parma, he takes on the photographic project “Black and White Portraits” with more than 50 portraits of celebrities from the art entertainment world, including Ernest Borgnine, Bernardo Bertolucci Daniel Pennac, Michelangelo Pistoletto, Hanna Schygulla, Edward Galeano, Gerard Depardieu, Emir Kusturica. In June 2008 he wins the first prize for creative professional photography in the food category and the jury defines him as an “Author with an out of the ordinary versatility “At the end of April 2009 he presents his solo exhibition “Tribes” at Atelier Nascosti, Parma; the work is part of a larger and more ambitious project to be considered as the incipit for a trilogy “The Last Breath On Earth”. “Memes” is part of the second strand and the cycle will end with “Clones” still in production.

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