Matteo Fato - Fondazione La Rocca [ENG]

All this began such a long time ago, the human search for the figure as antithesis of the simulacrum: the cry, the lament, the discovery of the soul, the hand is more alive than the spirit, it creates the form before the thought. This sculpture is 9000 years old and was discovered in Jordan in 1972. The title of this work is, in itself, a narrative—one that offers clues to understanding the artist...

Once the Bourbon Penal Baths, that is, the prison cells of Pescara’s fortress, this site has long borne witness to the development of contemporary art. In the 1970s, they housed the galleries of Mario Pieroni and Lucrezia De Domizio Durini, and  are now occupied by the Museo delle Genti d’Abruzzo. Inside this ethnographic museum, Matteo Fato’s work engages with the themes of the permanent exhibiti...

The air you see in the paintings is breathable (Jockey blessé, d’après, Edgar Degas,1896 / 1898) As already stated, for Matteo Fato the ‘d’après’ is a way to connect with the masters of the past. It is a fundamental practice in his painting. This d’après of Degas’s Jockey Blessé, painted in 1896, unfolds in three parts. The canvas next to the painted reinterpretation may appear abstract but it is...

We are in the Museum of the 19th Century in the historic former Bank of Italy building, which houses the collection of paintings and sculptures of the married couple, Venceslao Di Persio and Rosanna Pallotta. This is the first time the museum has hosted an exhibition by a contemporary artist but not the first time Matteo Fato has engaged with the history of art in his work. One series of works in...

The exhibition includes among its venues a space worth rediscovering. The place you’re now in was originally a storage facility for the local seafarers’ cooperative. Today, it reopens its doors as the new Project Space of Fondazione La Rocca. This section of the exhibition presents a wunderkammer—a chamber of wonders. But the wonders collected here don’t come from the world at large; they come fro...

What does it mean to forget? For Matteo Fato, a painting is finished when… you’ve forgotten it. But forgetting doesn’t mean “losing” the memory. To forget a painting, or any artwork, means that it is no longer an obsession, no longer a weight on the mind. It’s something you can finally look at from a distance and properly understand it. With this in mind, we can approach the exhibition as a kind o...

Did you see the image on the exhibition invitation? It shows Pescara’s seafront, seen from above. A man stands among the passers-by. He is the artist Matteo Fato, his arms are raised and he is holding up a rag used to clean paintbrushes. This photograph encapsulates the essence of Matteo Fato’s solo exhibition: Il difficile è dimenticare ciò che si è visto per casa (Ritratto di Pescara per caso) -...