Hall 25 – Booth B101
The New Flesh
Forget the human figure as we have known it. In Giuliano Sale’s new work, the body does not disappear; instead, it undergoes an organic metamorphosis that dismantles every traditional hierarchy between artistic genres. What was once a clear distinction between “portraiture” and “still life” here definitively collapses: Sale operates a true fusion of realms, where there is no longer an ontological difference between a plant, a vegetable, and a fragment of human anatomy.
In these canvases, the artist intervenes on the figure by replacing biological parts with vegetable substance. Fennel, tomatoes, and wild grass are not merely juxtaposed elements, but functional substitutes for tendons, muscles, and tissues. The pictorial treatment reserved for a vegetable is identical to that of a back or a tensed throat: this equalization transforms the object into a “desiring subject.” The vegetable ceases to be nature and becomes flesh.
We are faced with an atmosphere that could be defined as Post-Rousseau: as in the works of “Le Douanier,” nature is dense, impenetrable, and overabundant, but here the jungle is not an external backdrop. It is a psychological force that has exploded from within the human being, replacing its parts and transforming the viewer into a voyeur observing a body in constant transformation through a domestic wilderness.
Sale’s painting is visceral and tactile; one can perceive its temperature and density. There is no desire for abstraction, but rather a necessity to bring forth the tension that inhabits matter. The eroticism running through the works is a universal force linked to fertility and unstoppable growth: the union between plant and man celebrates life in its rawest and most powerful form. In a world of fast images, Giuliano Sale’s “New Flesh” forces us into a slow gaze, immersing us in an indissoluble tangle of earth, blood, and spirit, where every organic fragment reclaims its right to exist and pulse upon the canvas.