RUDY CREMONINI

ePIFANIA O IL TEMPO DI UNA SIGARETTA

WITH A teXT BY DAMIANO GULLì

francesca antonini arte contemporanea, romE

UNTIL DECEMBER 23RD 2025

Francesca Antonini Arte Contemporanea presents the exhibition Epifania o il tempo di una sigaretta (Epiphany or the time it takes to smoke a cigarette), Rudy Cremonini's (Bologna, 1981) second solo show at the gallery. 

The exhibition is the result of the artist's recent journey in China. The sacred dimension, which permeates inexorably the oriental culture and religion - to the point of manifesting itself in true epiphanies - appears clearly in his work. 

In this new body of works, Rudy Cremonini touches on the themes of vision, perception and the representation of time - both the one of an immediate revelatory epiphany and the one of the banal and the everyday, such as the time needed to smoke a cigarette - through an evocative painting that, regardless for the subjects represented, always moves on the border between figuration and abstraction. Thus, fragments of nature with fluid forms that are not immediately visible at a first glance emerge on the canvas. 

Most of the recurring elements of his imagery - portions of domestic interiors and liminal spaces - are still present, but are now immersed in a meditative atmosphere with a ritualistic flavor. This is the case, for example, of Il tempo di una sigaretta (The Time of a Cigarette), which shows a deck chair with no one sitting on it: here, the artist veils the rendering of a simple real datum with ambiguity.

Even the Incarnazione series - a small collection of red artworks - aims to depict in paint the small votive statues that can be seen in the display cases of some oriental museums. The artist's reworking of these sacred objects, which slowly emerge on the canvas as observing it, allows him to elevate his usual medium, painting, to divinity.