RUDY CREMONINI

CAPRICCIO

Opening MAY 19TH 2022

curated by Maria Chiara Valacchi


Francesca Antonini Arte Contemporanea is pleased to present Capriccio, the first solo show of Rudy Cremonini (Bologna, 1981) in the gallery. A wide selection of works that embraces some of the themes explored by the artist in the last few years. Floral compositions, swimming pools and bodies suspended in the absence of defined places mark the canvases with fluid and watery gestures, always playing on the line between fulness and emptiness.

In the History of Art, actions such as the imitation of natural forms or the adherence to rigorous aesthetic principles have been often the way to reach a satisfying sublimation of beauty. There has always existed an alternative path to all this - certainly less easy to follow - which has resisted the hegemony of the "rule", opposing everything that was close to the concept of mimesis: this is imagination. That is how, in the XVI century, the “Capriccio” was born; the emancipation from rigid expressive forms, the exaltation for a passion released from verisimilitude. Vasari considered the capriccio as a combination of inspiration and the will to act; for Cremonini there is no real designed pre-intention that anticipates the work, it takes shape like a shamanic ritual, the hand translates simultaneously his thought, in a constant exchange of creative flows. He paints suspending the form, working on the limit between the definition of the borders and the vagueness of the background. The emotivity in his subjects comes from the kind act of giving voice to his mind, and he reveals it by means of thick chromatic brushstrokes, powdery and diluted, deconstructing every aspect of a concrete and comforting reality. 

"Caprice is also defined as if painting, sculpture, or whatever, were a caprice of mine," is how Filippo Baldinucci - in his Vocabolario Toscano dell'Arte e del Disegno - seems to describe the spirit of this exhibition where, for the first time, we can observe works that are finally set free from any of the old constructs used by the artist up to now; a freeing up of his thoughts and forms, a first stage in his artistic maturity.