LUCA VALENTINI
Luca Valentini has produced a series of unpublished pieces for his personal exhibition “The Lval World”, his whole artistic world in painting that present themselves as an aesthetic interpretation of the world in which we live, trying to give an alternative to the stereotypical vision of reality and the opportunity to shift sideways, even if only by a couple inches, from the normal sense of understanding. The attempt is not that of trying to pursue an aesthetic ideal, but, on the contrary, to try and demolish the meaning of “things” using structures derived from the things themselves.
The absence of repetition given by the infinite differences presented in his art pieces, makes it so that anything can be transformed into a new element about to be discovered, giving the artist the capacity to experiment and create, usually a natural consequences to reflection and thought, that in his case are spontaneous, immediate and conduce the artist to subtle reflections in pursuit of the final conclusion of the art piece.
The shape that Luca Valentini attempts to find isn’t other than the continuous search for communicative language.These aren’t shapes that end within themselves but rather they try to communicate through their composition and color, using a code that transmits every day life, trying to find those subconscious states of being, to which we don’t pay much attention to during our hectic existence.
This exhibition proposes a 360° degree vision of a diversified plunge into a young talent of contemporary international art, embracing all the realms of his language, showing and confronting techniques and materials used by the artist to this day. His work is directly grips the world and society as we know it, investigating the possible situations of our every day life. He does not permit any technical obstacle to get in his way, showing himself as the true contemporary artist he is, a promoter and entrepreneur of himself, that moves into a realm of research that is current and experimental.
An imaginary world translated from reality that the artist has constructed with metaphors; the art that he produces is a sublimation of the work of man and of his memories, built with hands and relived with the senses.
The simplicity of his digital creations is enriched from the painting in continuous exercises that bring to the final objective desired in his work; the screen becomes a white canvas in which the images and the words give meaning and life to the shapes, rediscovering the poetic simplicity of the life of a world that returns the observer to reality, without the prejudice of knowledge.
In the gallery we find the elation of paint set up as a site-specific project, built from the big canvases on the wall in a vertical format that create the totality of the environment where the artist produces an absurd, ironic and syncretic world, where the act of performing-creating helps the painting itself into a continuous exchange of roles.
We find ourselves in front of a cultivated artist, that elicits pleasure and enthusiasm even reaching the most superficial level of our being, proposing an easy piece to look at, often fun, comprehensible and relaxing.
The importance we give to “things” doesn’t matter as much to Luca: the end goal is to show the real and particular representation of something, that can be an object, a publicity or a personal revisiting.
A window into the Pop philosophy and its objects, what before wasn’t worthy of attention or of being called art: publicities of any kind, magazine illustrations, pamphlets, comic books and movies. A way of facing art and life together: outside there is a reality and the art of Valentini looks to that direction, to the world, showing to accept its environment, not defining if it is good or bad, but simply leaving the mark of an artistic pursuit.
The intention was not that of finding something that belonged to the sphere of an ideal and highsociety culture, it was sufficient to pick and choose through the materialistic one, that culture that is practical and fits into every day life, where the chosen subject can have countless meanings.
Portraits of celebrities like Marilyn Monroe, Jane Fonda, Cindy Crawford, Pablo Escobar, Marlon Brando, Robert De Niro, Al Pacino, just to mention a few of them.
With the term “icon” generally we indicate a subject that is considered a role model to follow in various areas, that could be fashion, show-business , politics, economy or sport. Often the cultural plains intersect, transforming a character from a cinematographic production, for example, into an icon of style, or even an opinion leader, tying his or her image strongly to socio-political references.
Contemporary art has felt the push from these characters that have then been associated with a deeper meaning, branding definitively art and the contemporary culture and becoming immortalized icons, not for from the sacred icons portrayed during bizantine art.
The painting exhibited portray legendary characters, trying to capture their essence and to consecrate them, through artistic expression, as timeless icons.
Luca Valentini’s work can be accosted to that of Warhol that, whom predicted the manic spread of what images have become, deciding to create an art form from it, an indelible brand into the contemporary art history.
Starting from Pop Art, reality and what surrounds us has been portrayed, at least the most popular version (mass consumption produces such as Campbell’s soup cans or Coca Cola bottles, celebrity faces such as Marilyn or Elvis, images from mass media and publicity) through the isolation and dilation of the subject and the serial repetition of his own image.
Each art piece, composed by anti-naturalistic and bright colours, has been pushed to the extreme to obtain a strong emotional impact, iconizing an image that by its nature should have been mass produces and of common use.
The art pieces that are shown in the gallery and in the catalogue, come close, with different facets, to the movement defined as Neo-Pop: an artistic current born in the 90s of the 20th century and developed through the influence of interesting cultural references that vary from the underground world to web design, from street art to urban design, from graffiti art to all the new possibilities brought by computer media.
Differently from historic Pop Art, that has a more detached and impersonal approach, the Neo-Pop current wants to stimulate a reflection on the dynamics of contemporary life and on the significance of each icon represented.
More than twenty pieces in the gallery illustrate the peculiarity of communicating social content, to ethics, the allegories and the subtle analysis’ and critiques of the contemporary society, transform these messages into icons that have a strong emotional impact.
With the downfall of the barriers between fine-art and minor art, trying to embrace a concept of “art for all”, through techniques similar to marketing and communication, the artist today becomes a designer label.
Luca Valentini’s art manifests itself and takes inspiration from the brands of globalized products of mass consumption, from comic books and sub-culture, to arrive to the publicity campaigns, to super heroes and to cinema divas.
Capable of merging rapidly on any platform, becoming immediately accessible and recognizable, factors that are subject to constant evolution, well represented in their path.
His work highlights how the images, symbols of culture of large consumerism have become privileged subjects in a new figurative wave: from the superheroes in comic books to the famous characters that have become idols and integrating parts of the collective imagination in different generations, from the 70s to today.
