'The Show Must Go On', the work by Giuseppe Stampone for Skin Taste, Third Edition

On Tuesday March 1, 2016 at 6PM opens the 3rd edition of SKIN TASTE, a project curated by Adriana Rispoli. Every year the project invites an international artist to interpret the 'skin' of the PortoFluviale, a well-known bar restaurant in the Ostiense neighbourhood in Rome. PortoFluviale is situated in a huge ex-warehouse, one of the most fascinating industrial arcitectural buildings of the Italian capital.
After Mariangela Levita (2013) and Flavio Favelli (2014), Giuseppe Stampone is the third artist who is going to realise a work consisting of large paper posters that are covering ritually the facade of the historical building.
Stampone is an internationally well-known artist for his use of distinctive drawing lines made by Bic pens. By means of the pen he translates images stolen from the network to manual drawings with a strong artisan character. 'The Show Must Go On' is the title of the work that the artist will produce for SKIN TASTE where the blue lettering of the famous pen overlies the most well-known icons of the world of cinema: Dream Works, 20thCenturyFox, Paramount, Metro Goldwyn Mayer, Warner Bros e Columbia. The images are immediately recognisable from the film production companies which hold the world-wide monopoly of the 'Seventh Art', at least from a commerical point of view.
'The Show Must Go On' alludes to a statement which is used and abused in the Society of the Spectacle (and not only) to indicate metaphorically the flux of time, but it is also a precise message that the artist would like to transmit. Stampone's images seem to throw a laconic warning towards the Italian capital, headquarters of the illustrious Cinecittà founded in the days of Fascism. Without ever abandoning the political role of art, Stampone would like to make us reflect on the grotesquely spectacular drifts of the city, on the fact that it is always more simple scenic design and finally on its unstable political situation.
Thanks to an immediate capability to communicate, using a style that is both dignified and belonging to the mass -and so amazing the public on several levels- Stampone's works open new settings for reflection while using associations –often sarcastically understood- between signifier and meaning. The artist's research in the virtual field examines the real dimension, imposing the paralysis of the everyday reality to the velocity of the internet.
Giuseppe Stampone (Cluses, France, 1974) lives in Roma. With his causting drawing lines he identifies and underlines by means of a cross creativity the urgencies of the present. In 2011, two years after the earthquake in the Abruzzo region, the artist has started a cycle of new works with Saluti dall'Aquila. These work as a postcard, the romantic vehicle of memory. The intrinsically refined character of the postcard becomes a way to denounce the political, conceptual and ideological paralysis. After Saluti da La Habana, Saluti da New Orleans, Saluti da Istanbul and Saluti da Castel Romano, (Castel Romano is the seat of the largest Roma camp in the Italian capital) the project 'The Show Must Go On' presents Saluti da Roma.
Stampone's work has been exhibited extensively in Italy and abroad, at international biennials, museums and art galleries, such as: 56. Biennale di Venezia, 2015; Kochi-Muziris Biennale, 2012; 11. Bienal de la Habana, 2012; 6. Liverpool Biennial, 2010; 14. e 15. Quadriennale di Roma, 2004-2008; Rob Pruitt's Flea Market, 2015; MIT Museum, Boston, 2015; Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani, Milan-Lucca, 2010-2012-2015; Kunsthalle City Museum, Gwangiu 2010; MAXXI – Museo Nazionale d'Arte del XXI secolo, Rome 2014; Palazzo Reale, Milan, 2014; La Triennale, Milan 2008-2009; Museo Gamec, Bergamo, 2010-2011-2014; Museo Macro, Rome 2010-2011. He won the prestigious residency at the American Academy in Rome in 2013 where he exhibited in various shows in between 2013 and 2015.
The strategic position of PortoFluviale in the Ostiense neighbourhood in Rome and its charming architectonical structure are the basis of the project SkinTaste conceived by Adriana Rispoli, who has invited every year an artist to interprete the facade or the 'skin' of the the ex-warehouse from the '50-ies with a site-specific work consisting of large paper posters. SKIN TASTE aims at involving the inhabitants of the neighbourhood as temporary visitors inviting them to face an artistic message and not a publicity one, although the used stategy derives from publicity. The esthetical requalification of the subway area and the strong will to create a new incubator of creativity with the specific mission to produce a synergy between the worlds of art and food, are the basis of the project. The conviviality, the transmission of the past, the perception of details and differences are among the aspects that artists analyse by the eye of art and by means of their work.
SKIN TASTE is multi-year project of PortoFluviale
The 3rd edition is produced with the support of Caffè Mogi.

SKIN TASTE
curated by Adriana Rispoli
III edition
Giuseppe Stampone
THE SHOW MUST GO ON

Opening:
Tuesday, March 1st 2016, h 6 pm

Date mostra:
March 1 - June 5, 2016

PortoFluviale 
via del Porto Fluviale 22, Roma