Strato impermeabile

10 & zero uno is pleased to present the first solo exhibition of the young artist Gennaro De Luca (Cassino, 2001) that will take place in its space in Via Garibaldi 1830, close to the Gardens of the Venice Biennale, from November 12th, 2023 to January 7th, 2024, opening Saturday, November 11, at 6 PM.

The exhibition project titled “Strato impermeabile,” curated by Chiara Boscolo, revolves around the material used by the artist for his latest sculpture research phase. The artist has used wax to cover the objects, which serves as a conceptual barrier to reduce the density of the image and its meanings.

De Luca’s creative process develops in a borderline area between what is ephemeral and what is not. He often uses discarded materials like cardboard boxes from nearby supermarkets to create his artwork. Through his work, he seeks to investigate and shed light on various aspects of our society, particularly by highlighting the concept of waste as a reflection of human existence. In fact, these objects from industrial processing, stored inside a wax casing, aim to confront the permanence of art with the transience of these materials destined for a limited life. The artist’s use of wax also reflects the functions given by its chemical and physical properties that make it an excellent insulator and see it commonly used for food preservation, through an interpretation of this ability the object is isolated from its meanings by going to enhance the ephemeral through a sculptural language.

Further reason for analysis is the transformation of what we can identify as structural cardboard skeletons into real works of art given by repeated gestures. A movement that has something of the hypnotic. A continuous dipping of the brush in wax, liquefied and gently applied to the structure. Layer after layer compares organic and inorganic through content analogies between the elements, questioning the relationship between meaning and signifier.

Presented in the exhibition is a body of six new works specially conceived and created for the characteristic spaces of the former butcher shop on Garibaldi Street. Four of them invade the largest room of the gallery developing mainly on the floor while the remaining two are placed on pedestal in the small room on the left where they are enveloped by an aura that seems to elevate them to a sacred object.

Gennaro De Luca’s work is a fusion of different influences, in which industrial and artisanal elements (see his predilection for the use of kerosene beeswax) come together, giving rise to works intended to provoke in viewers reflections on a language made up of contrasts.