The exhibition Tauromaquias / Tauromachie at the Foqus Gallery

LThe Galleria di Foqus Fondazione Quartieri Spagnoli in Naples will inaugurate the exhibition Tauromaquias / Tauromachie on Friday 24 June at 20 pm, in the presence of the Spanish Ambassador Alfonso Dastis.

Contemporary Views on an Ancestral Mediterranean Myth, curated by Iris Martín-Peralta. Three contemporary artists – photographers Aitor Lara and Gianmaria De Luca and director Elettra Pierantoni – retrace and revisit Spanish bullfighting, an ancient and millenary tradition of the Mediterranean.

Organized by the Embassy of Spain in Italy, FOQUS Fondazione Quartieri Spagnoli, with the collaboration of Fondazione con il Sud and Consorzio Jobel – Museo e Giardini di Pitagora, the exhibition confirms the special Hispanic attention towards the Spanish Quarters of Naples (built during the Spanish occupation of the 16th century) to present photography and cinema, an audiovisual immersion in what bullfighting represents in the 21st century.

Aitor Lara (Seville, 1974), one of the most significant figures in contemporary Spanish art photography, dedicates his work to a reinterpretation of the ancient Spanish bullfighting, a Mediterranean myth still practiced in many Spanish cities and a subject of profound conflict between supporters and detractors.

The large black and white images of the Maestranza series bear witness to the research into the faces and movements of the people who were the protagonists of the bullfights of inland Spain and are in dialogue with the photographic works Eva Florentia by Gianmaria De Luca (Rome, 1988), an artist who, through the study of different printing techniques, starts from the influences3 of the Italian tradition to reread in turn and with a different gaze, inspired by the figurative techniques of Velasquez, the ancestral fight between bull and human being.

On the opening night at 21 pm, the film Eva (2020, 60 min) will be presented, which director Elettra Pierantoni (Rome, 1987) has dedicated to bullfighting. Eva is a former Italian bullfighter who lived in Andalusia for twenty years and wants to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of her public debut by bullfighting again.

Eva's experience in the world of bullfighting is an opportunity to enter through another, feminine door into a container full of symbols. The three acts of the story correspond to the three acts of bullfighting, as well as the three moments of Eva's life; the escape, the dream and the new challenge. It is the story of an unstoppable passion, of an endless love, of an artistic obsession: a reflection on the charm and drama of a fight that, in its cruelty and elegance of rules and ceremonies, represents one of the most ancient reminiscences of Mediterranean cultures.

The exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue, which contains introductory and critical texts, in addition to the works presented in the exhibition.