I VINTI – Davide Serpetti solo show – Villa D’Este, Tivoli-Rome – Until June 4, 2023

From the Level 0 project was born the exhibition “I VINTI” by Davide Serpetti (L’Aquila, 1990), format of ArtVerona Art Fair 2021 which proposed the collaboration between museums, contemporary artists and galleries.
The director of the VILLA Andrea Bruciati invited Davide Serpetti to face the genius loci of the VILLAE and in particular the secular stratification of the Sanctuary of Ercole Vincitore.
“I selected Davide Serpetti – declares Andrea Bruciati – for the unprecedented ability to project himself towards a utopian and narrative dimension through the practice of painting, highlighting the plausible figures of contact between mythical imaginaries and metamorphic needs, linked to the fluidity of contemporary thought . The artist talks about the ways in which he manages to translate the urgency of considering our historical and cultural roots, as a forge and constant source of inspiration for contemporary research “.
The solo show, organized by VILLAE and mc2gallery, presents a series of unpublished works created specifically to enter into dialogue with the ancient sculptures preserved in the Antiquarium.
The exhibition itinerary winds through the twentieth-century rooms of the ancient factory that incorporate and fit into the Roman walls of the classical age. Serpetti’s canvases fit into this stratification, offering, in a contemporary key, a possible and real way of interacting between cultural heritage and contemporary creation, making clear and evident the need to consider our historical and cultural roots. For example, Chimera and Study for lion enter directly into relationship with Hercules and his leontè-skin of the neme-mythical lion and precious trophy of the first effort.
The Dreamers therefore refer with their vivid plastic presence and their liquid fragility on the one hand to Medardo Rosso’s Ecce puer (date and museum) and on the other to the ancient sculptures of the Sanctuary of Hercules Victor that have come down to us in their state fragmentary. .
The wounded man, the murderer, the tattoo artist, the tax collector, formally echo the warrior of Capestrano – an iconic sculpture preserved in Chieti in the National Archaeological Museum – creating an ideal bridge that closely links the origins of Serpetti to an extraordinary archaeological find value that has become a symbol for an entire region.
“New creative possibilities – say the two curators – mature in the fertile humus of the Institute by putting together heterogeneous experiences, which through Serpetti’s painting contribute to a renewed visual and cultural identity, rooted in the past, but attentive to the present and projected into the future.
Davide Serpetti. I VINTI
curated by Andrea Bruciati, Davide Bertolini
Sanctuary of Hercules Victor,Tivoli-Rome November 19, 2022 – June 4, 2023