The 'Antivirus' exhibition at the Pan in Naples

From 3 al September 16th 2021, at Bread, in Naples, the Cultural Association Elsa Morante Prize -onlus-, in collaboration with the Department of Education, Culture and Tourism of Naples and the Palazzo delle Arti, has organized the exhibition “Antivirus” which collects works, in particular the famous “hugs”, by the painter of Italian origin who has lived in Berlin for thirty years, Mariella Ridda.

This is an artist who exhibits, in addition to Italy, in Berlin, France, Austria, Tokyo. The exhibition is curated by Tiuna Notarbartolo. About 40 large and medium-sized canvases that, with vital, hypnotic, disruptive colors, represent an original and characteristic, engaging and warm theme that, until two years ago, could have seemed obvious to us: that of hugs. Hugs that the painter has been portraying for about a decade. And that, given the contingencies of our time, Notarbartolo, as curator, has collected in an exhibition that she has titled "Antivirus" and which also includes the very modern "cries" of the Ridda, the splendid marine canvases and the dazzling volcanoes.

Through this art exhibition, which is a specific cultural choice of the non-profit organization named after Elsa Morante, we wanted, by identifying a title, “Antivirus” precisely, to also tell for future memory, of that incomprehensible and suffocating moment in which hugs were forbidden.

Forbidden like the most dangerous things, or the most salvific. Obligations and prohibitions always make us reflect on the deep meaning of things, on the less obvious place where the truth lies. And the truth, for us, is that a hug is certainly good for your health. Perhaps it is in the arms of the other, in this exchange of neglected humanity, that one finds one's own salvation. The real "Antivirus".

Those of the Ridda are hugs between men and women, between women and women, women and children, men and men, human beings and animals. What happens in those hugs? Love, goodbyes, reunions, comfort, friendship, warmth, union, encounter, complicity, amazement, enchantment, moments, energies, eternity, silent essences, humanity.

These are paintings that speak without words, like the most archaic and complete of gestures. They “scream” reaching other frequencies, those of those who know how to perceive all the power and beauty of art. They are dazzling works without rhetoric, material, with a very strong chromatic impact. Unmissable. The exhibition can be visited every day from 9,30:19,30 to XNUMX:XNUMX.