Artist: Ugo Giletta

Exhibition: Il volto dell’altro

Curator: Lóránd Hegyi

Location: LipanjePuntin artecontemporanea – Roma
Via di Montoro 10 – 00186 Roma

Duration: 20 November – 31 January 2008

Opening: Thursday 20 November, from 7 to 9 pm

LipanjePuntin artecontemporanea - Roma is proud to present Il volto dell’altro, a solo exhibition by Ugo Giletta (1957, San Firmino di Revello), curated by Lóránd Hegyi.

Following several years of research focused on the human figure, with paintings representing bodies lying down or on all fours, Ugo Giletta’s new work now focuses on the human face.
The series of works, presented in Rome for the first time, consist of watercolours on paper and canvas in various sizes. As the artist himself suggests, these subjects should be conceived neither as masks nor as portraits, but rather as symbols and pure representation. Giletta rejects all anecdotal hints and literary references to specific times or places - generally anything that would be identifiable from a cultural or historical point of view - his “portraits” are heads and faces, lonely and isolated in an undefined void that cannot be easily contextualised.

Ugo Giletta paints his heads and faces with a minimal degree of solidity. They are ephemeral portraits of no identifiable person. Impersonal and estranged as they may be, their uncanny quality further means that they fall outside any system of classification or cataloguing whatsoever. They are simply present, in their objectiveness, needing no explanation about whom they belong to or where they came from. Similarly the lack of personal physical traits keeps them distant from any possible narrative. They are refugees, without a personal story, pathos or homeland.

Ugo Giletta portrays heads devoid of clear somatic traits, only five dark holes representing the eyes, nostrils and mouth: five elementary indentations that subtly define an immortal oval.

At the closing of the exhibition, the book Ugo Giletta: Il volto dell’altro will be presented. This publication is part of the LipanjePuntin artecontemporanea collection, with critical contributions by Lóránd Hegyi, Nico Orengo e Francesco Tomatis.

In collaboration with a.c. viadimontoro10 and artport 1

LIPANJEPUNTIN artecontemporanea
via di Montoro 10 – 00186 Roma
Tel. + 39 06 68307780 Fax + 39 06 68216758
www.lipanjepuntin.com
roma@lipuarte.it

Gallery hours: Tuesday-Saturday, 2 – 8pm or by appointment