Friday, October 28th, at 5PM, the presentation of the catalog of Christian Leperino Dodici volti nel volto (Twelve faces in the face), published by artem, will be held at the Cathedral of Napoli, in the spaces of the Basilica of Santa Restituta.
Speakers: Adolfo Russo, Vicar for Culture of the Diocese of Napoli; Angela Tecce, President of the Donnaregina Foundation for Contemporary Arts; Salvatore Esposito, Lecturer at the Theological Faculty of Southern Italy; Luigi Caramiello, Professor of Sociology of Art and Literature, University of Napoli “Federico II”; Maria D’Ambrosio, Professor of General Pedagogy and director of the Embodied Education research group at the Suor Orsola Benincasa University of Napoli; Alessandra Troncone, curator of the exhibition and catalog; Christian Leperino, artist.
The publication Dodici volti nel volto documents the homonymous installation by Christian Leperino in the Crypt of San Gennaro of the Napoli Cathedral, inaugurated on 6 May 2021 and promoted by the Cathedral of Napoli and the Cathedral Chapter, with the Matronage of the Donnaregina Foundation for contemporary arts and in collaboration with Scabec, an in-house company of the Campania Region for the enhancement and promotion of cultural heritage.
The event gave birth to a fascinating encounter between the sacred and contemporary art, sanctioning for the first time the latter’s entry into the city’s Cathedral. In the lateral niches of the crypt which preserves the sacred relics of San Gennaro, twelve plaster portraits establish a silent dialogue with this suggestive place. They are the twelve apostles, as their number suggests, but they are also the faces of men who live the present in a marginal condition. The artist has in fact made these busts starting from a laboratory with some inmates at the Poggioreale Prison in Napoli, in an experience of self-knowledge through the exploration of one’s physical features and matter. The result intertwines references to the history of art, the sacred-symbolic dimension and stories of life.
The catalog makes use of the contributions of Adolfo Russo, Angela Tecce, Salvatore Esposito and Alessandra Troncone. The publication is accompanied by photographs by Amedeo Benestante, Giancarlo De Luca and Riccardo Siano.
This will be followed by a visit to the installation in the Crypt of San Gennaro with the artist and the curator.
About the artist.
Christian Leperino (Napoli 1979), painter and sculptor, in his search for him intertwines the theme of the urban landscape with the reflection on time, memory, the transformations of places and the destinies of the individuals who live there. In his most recent sculptures, he alternates the modeled with the cast, the trace of a living body, an object, a fragment of art from the past. Matter that absorbs, preserves and returns stories, forms, moods, in a dialogue between presence and absence, mirages of beauty and echoes of history. His works are present in museum collections and public spaces: MANN – National Archaeological Museum of Napoli; Aragonese Castle of Ischia; MADRE Museum, Napoli; MMOMA – Moscow Museum of Modern Art in Moscow; IICT of Tokyo; Civic Gallery of Contemporary Art of Suzzara; Mergellina Railway Station, Napoli. Among the numerous national and international exhibitions: Abisso, Castello Aragonese di Ischia (2019); Teratopolis, Vetrya Corporate Campus, Orvieto (2018-2019); Babel, Other size Gallery, Milano (2018); The Silk Road. Contemporary art between East and West, Castel dell’Ovo, Napoli (2016); City Layers, Palais Palffy, Vienna (2015); Border lines. Nature, the body, the cities, Carlo Bilotti Museum, Roma (2015); Writings, IICT-Italian Cultural Institute, Tokyo (2014); Chiaroscuro, Moscow Academy of Arts and St. Petersburg Academy (2013); Landscapes of Memory, National Archaeological Museum of Napoli (2012); 54th Venice Biennale, Italian Pavilion (2011); Human Escape, MAC-Museu de Arte Contemporânea de Niterói, Rio de Janeiro (2010). He is a tenured AFAM MIUR professor for the chair of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Napoli.
