(August 28, 2017) "Everything, even if it is already seen, must be re-examined, re-watched. Everything is here in front of us, yet this 'being in front of' must be deepened with simplicity and wonder, with sweetness, poetry, new energy, aware that every shift in our gaze, every beat of our lashes, every focus of our eyes can tell something fun and new: urgent, necessary, beautiful". Words by the artist Corrado Veneziano, who is preparing to land with his works in China. On Saturday, September 2 (with a preview for the authorities on Friday, September 1), at the National Gallery of Modern and Contemporary Art in Lanzhou will be inaugurated the exhibition "Segni". Strongly desired by Wu Weidong, the director of this exhibition space, the Veneziano exhibition, scheduled until October 10 (free admission, from 9am to 6pm), one of the few personal hosted by the museum: in fact, the most esteemed Chinese National Gallery in Contemporary Art - known to host the works of the major Chinese artists and to host the works of living artists, with particular attention to the international ones - rarely allocates their rooms to single artists. "We have the enormous pleasure of having the Italian artist Corrado Veneziano in Lanzhou, involved in a very personal exhibition at the National Gallery. Thanks to his 40 works", said Wu Weidong, “professionals, collectors and art enthusiasts in Lanzhou, Gansu and China will have the opportunity to enjoy the complexity of contemporary Italian art. We are certain - he added - that the exhibition will have a success ever recorded before for the provocative style, novelty and beauty of the paintings presented. "On display in China forty canvases, half of them large, made of oil, acrylic or mixed technique. Subject of his work is a visual universe known to us all and represented, from time to time, by symbols, daily signs, chains and commercial networks brands, logos related to the world of economy and industry, bar codes from every business place and, last but not least, the great canvases of the fifteenth century, so well-known and admired to be also a sort of brand, reproducible and repeated. Starting from all these, Veneziano chooses to reverse and recombine every subject. Barcodes identifying books become gates, flower stems, olive branches on which the artist prints western and eastern scriptures, ancient and modern alphabets, mysterious graphics; The QR becomes a mosaic, "Coca Cola" bottles become solitaire and thoughtful women whose features are hidden by the burqa. Even the masterpieces by Michelangelo, Masaccio, Leonardo da Vinci, Botticelli, the most fascinating authors of the history of Western art, undergo a transformation by the artist's hand that turns the "Last Supper" into a sacred and advertised fast food, replaces The "apple" of the Old Testament with a more technological "Apple." (Red)

ABOUT / THE ARTIST

Corrado Veneziano (Tursi, 1958) alternated his research and academic teaching activities with his permanent work as an artist. Theatrical director for international festivals (often with the Venice Biennale) and television director for the Rai 3 Kids Division and Rainews 24, he has published numerous volumes (about communication and expressiveness) with important Italian publishers. He has held workshops and seminars at universities and academies, in Europe, the United States, and Africa. In 2013 he presented his paintings in Rome for the first time, gathering the flattering attention of critics Achille Bonito Oliva and anthropologist Marc Augè. On its pictorial production, it is worth underlining the exhibition hosted by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Brussels in the first semester of the European Presidency of Italy (2014) and two events of 2015. The first is linked to the ISBN 9788820302092 exhibition held in Paris at the Espace en Cours directed by Julie Heintz; The second is related to the framework Rai commissioned for the 67th Prix Italia - International TV, web and radio competition. The Paris exhibition was inscribed in the French manifestations on the 750th anniversary of the birth of Dante Alighieri; The work for the Prix Italia (held in Turin between 19 and 24 September) has become the symbol of the 2015 edition of the Prix, titled "The Power of Stories, the Creativity Lab." Also 2016 has recorded various pictorial and artistic initiatives, among which it is worth mentioning the personal exhibition at the old Nevskij Gallery 8 in St Petersburg, titled "The Codes of the Soul" in which Veneziano presented for the most part his works dedicated to ISB codes. Recently (St. Petersburg, January-February 2017) the artist was exhibited in the same space with the staff "Signs, Logos and Corruption", curated by Raffaella Salato.