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8/12/2005

Valerio Berruti

Esso Gallery, New York

Golgota

Jennifer and Filippo Fossati are pleased to announce the Esso Gallery opening of the exhibition by Italian artist Valerio Berruti entitled “Golgota".

“For the show at Esso Gallery, Valerio Berruti has made fourteen canvases in a group entitled ‘Golgota’. Each one is a fresco made on burlap which portrays a young girl preparing to dive, the last and most poignant picture is the one that precedes the dive.

Golgotha (Calvary) is the English-language name given to the hill outside Jerusalem on which Jesus was crucified. Calvaria in Latin, Kraniou Topos in Greek and Gulgalta in Aramaic all mean 'skull'. Calvary is mentioned in all four of the accounts of Jesus' crucifixion in the Christian canonical Gospels; John in 19:17 writes: And carrying his cross by himself, he went out to the so-called Place of the Skull, which is called in 'Hebrew' Golgotha. The curious origins of many Biblical names, the twofold and sometimes disagreeing explanations offered for them by the Sacred Writers (Genesis passim) should make us think about the multiple meanings of this word.

In the work of Valerio Berruti there is the echo of a specifically Italian-metaphysical tradition that began at the start of the 20th century, after the periods of impressionism and divisionism, a tradition he overturns while thoroughly engaging it. Reminiscent of metaphysical pictures, which use empty architectonic spaces and mannequins, Berruti’s paintings glimpse a renaissance where the figure becomes the space, she is the architecture that sustains the painting. The paintings don't need streets, houses, furniture, not even the furnished reality of which many critics speak, because she is the reality and the apparatus that furnishes. The continuing themes of the language of the body, the religious aspect, the surprise and the chapter of portraiture from Poussin to Paolini in which I would now include Valerio Berruti."
Teresio Ottavio Camenzio from "Presentations", Langhe Edizioni, Roddino, Italy 2005

Valerio Berruti was born in Alba, Italy in 1977. He received a degree in Art Criticism from D.A.M.S. in Turin. He lives and works in Verduno, Italy in a deconsecrated 17th-century church, which he bought and restored in 1995. His works have been shown in several exhibitions since the mid-nineties, including the Quadriennale di Roma Anteprima. His new catalogue “Primary" was published by Charta in 2005. In April 2006, the Herzliya Museum of Contemporary Art, Tel-Aviv will hold Valerio Berruti's first solo museum show. In 2004 he was the recipient of SEAT's prize for the cover of the Yellow Pages in Italy. He is currently a grant recipient of the I.S.C.P. International Studio & Curatorial Program, New York, NY.

This exhibition has been generously supported by the Italian Cultural Institute of New York.

Esso Gallery
531 West 26th St. 2nd fl. - New York
Gallery Hours: Tuesday - Saturday, 11 a.m. - 6 p.m.

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