Edited by Demetrio Paparoni.
A work presented simultaneously in Naples and Syracuse (Church of Santa Lucia alla Badia) for a double exhibition in the two symbolic sites of devotion to San Gennaro and Santa Lucia, figures linked by similar events and fates and still loved and alive today in the faith and memory of the community.
The exhibition that the artist has created in Naples for the Treasure of San Gennaro opens on the day of the third of the annual celebrations in honor of the Patron Saint and the hoped-for miracle of the liquefaction of the blood, and presents two large-scale site-specific works inspired by Baroque culture and the copper masterpieces kept in the Chapel and Sacristy of the Treasure of San Gennaro by Luca Giordano, Jusepe de Ribera, Domenichino and Massimo Stanzione.
Samorì’s works made on large copper plates (180×141) propose a contemporary reinterpretation and a different enjoyment of classical works, prompting new perceptions and experiences of the paintings kept in the Tesoro di San Gennaro. Blood is the key, the symbol that summarizes the bond between the saint and his people, that blood that dies as human and lives again as divine.
The two works are entitled The Blood of the Saints and are inspired by the paintings Saint Mary of Egypt by Jusepe de Ribera (1641) and Saint Paul the Hermit by Luca Giordano (1644), preserved respectively at the Prado Museum in Madrid and the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts.
The exhibition was presented this morning (Friday, December 15) by the artist and the curator. After the greetings of Mons. Vincenzo De Gregorio Abbot Prelate of the Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, the speakers included Eike Schmidt, art historian, director of the Uffizi Galleries, Riccardo Imperiali di Francavilla, Deputy of the Royal Chapel of the Treasure of San Gennaro, Francesca Ummarino, Director of the Museum of the Treasure of San Gennaro and Francesco Imperiali di Francavilla.
“A painter and sculptor who relies on an iconography that is not foreign to the canons of classicism, Samorì is anything but a traditionalist artist. His is one of the most poignant testimonies of how an artist can love classicism and tradition and at the same time betray both. In his works, the language is determined first and foremost by the choice of materials and techniques to be used. In addition to canvas, Samorì paints on wooden panels and on sheets of copper, brass and various types of stone and marble. On copper in several cases, in addition to oil paint, he uses acids that he drips to obtain a controlled oxidation of the metal from which the image comes to life. He often intervenes on the painted surface that is not yet completely dry with the tools of the engraver – burin, scalpel, gouges, chisels – lifting large flaps of paint that, covering the bodies of his subjects, appear similar to skin, or detaching long filaments from the support that become, from time to time, hair, eyelashes, strings of a musical instrument.” Demetrio Paparoni curator of the exhibition
“The color of copper, pink and reddish, lends itself well to the representation of the body and, in particular, of its interior. It is no coincidence that copper is very useful for the production of red blood cells, bones and connective tissues and is also the metal that humanity has used for the longest time, something that brings us back to an origin of gestures, like that of the hermits who ideally dig a niche in the window space of the sacristy. […] Metaphorically, in these paintings, both hermits have been beheaded like San Gennaro and their blood/copper falls to the ground. They are beheaded because both figures are physically deprived of their heads that leave a mark on the copper and a trail of very bright skin/blood […] For me, every work is a synthesis of living: it is made of care and anger, adoration and rejection. And between the construction of a solid, crack-free form and its disintegration, there is an interval that attracts me more than anything else: it is the exhausted form – I like to call it “exhausted” – that stops one step short of its own disappearance, in an oscillation between form and formlessness, between being and non-being, between narrating and keeping silent.” Nicola Samorì
The exhibition is part of the intentions of the Deputation that has always had the task and responsibility of guarding the relics and the Treasure of San Gennaro, and of continuing to promote and innovate interest in the cult of the Patron Saint. The aim is to open the Treasury to different forms of art that, respecting tradition, renew the spirit of patronage and bond between the city of Naples and its Saint. The dialogue between what has been and the present manifests itself in new interpretations that open up to modern comparisons on ancient questions. In this sense, the relationship between the research of the works by Luca Giordano present in the sacristy, recently restored, and those specifically created by Nicola Samorì appears linear, in which the opposing objectives of completeness of the first and the desired incompleteness of the second are reconciled in the techniques and materials, leaving the public to interpret the lives of the saints and the related messages of faith and values.
The exhibition “Luce e Sangue” by Nicola Samorì in Naples at the Tesoro di San Gennaro will be open until January 15, 2024. At the same time in Syracuse, until January 7, 2024 in the church of Santa Lucia alla Badia, you can admire the artist's homage to Saint Lucia, an oil painting on Trani stone in which the artist depicts the torments inflicted on the saint dedicated to the portrait the Martyrdom of Saint Lucia (1579) by Deodato Guinaccia.
Article published on 15 December 2023 - 16:56
