Estasi
Naomi Zucker and Andrea Costanzo Martini
Curator: Efrat Gal- Shemesh
11.06.2015 - 03.07.2015
On Thursday, June 11, 2015, Alfred – A Cooperative Institute for Arts and Culture, will open a double exhibition which will feature the works of Naomi Zucker and Andrea Costanzo Martini. The exhibition will present paintings, video art and a performance.
Naomi Zucker will exhibit a body of work based on eight years of research of images from churches from Lisbon, Prague and Naples. The paintings, some rich and fertile, made oil on canvas, and some are drawn on shiny textile cloths, appear and disappear with the light, emphasize twisted and perverted aspects of icons of saints and the figure of baby Jesus.
Zucker's paintings take pleasure from the grandiose visuality of Christianity. The saints, that sometimes have a blurry gender, seem to be experiencing a religious or maybe sexual ecstasy in a wide range between god worshiping and blasphemy.
Andrea Costanzo Martini is dealing with the aspect of narcissistic love in the performer's role. Inspired with the imagery of the peculiar Italian phenomena of the “Santini” (votive cards depicting vivid and sometimes explicit figures of Saints and Martyrs), he created a dance performance reflecting on the sin of vanity. Martini creates a timed choreography of series of symbolic gestures. The ceremony, containing some grotesque elements, is operated by a choir, which is a multiplication of the artist's own figure.
The title of the exhibition Estasi, means ecstasy in Italian. The works presented by Zucker and Martini deal with elation, a powerful sensory experience, an almost religious and erotic experience. The Italian title implies to the Christian context rooted in Latin Italy, and influenced by the private Catholic heritage of Martini.
