Luigi Ontani

Following the two previous exhibitions at GAM (1982) and Villa delle Rose (1991), MAMbo devotes a major survey show to Luigi Ontani. An imaginative, narcissistic artistic persona, a consummate enchanter, an ironic provoker, a dreamlike experimenter, Ontani represented quite an anomaly in the Italian art scene at the end of the 1960s, even in a general climate of refusal of traditional artistic subjects and techniques. Ontani overcomes space-time barriers, manipulating various languages and proposing himself as an “art subject”, as an identity in constant transformation. Not even during the 1970s did Ontani use photography as a pure act of documentation, but rather as a surface on which he can stratify illusion upon illusion, using watercolors and overlapping prints with captivating polychrome varnish. A practice through which he redefined photographic representation's criteria taking them to extreme consequences until he transcended them, flooding even ceramics, gl ass, masks, animated objects, stock characters, lenticulars unwinds, 16mm films and slide shows with his figure. Gigante3RazzEtà7ArtiCentAuro is not a traditional survey show but rather a spectacular experience that turns the museum halls into the stage for the permanent performance of the artist’s life.

A survey catalogue in three volumes will be available from April 2008.

Luigi Ontani
Kurator: Gianfranco Maraniello