In the setting of the Botanical Garden of Rome, an evocative installation inside the French greenhouse where, to accompany the large canvases of the trees of the Moving Forest, 25 small oval canvases with the portraits of the Greenscovery Masters, the botanists whose insights have uncovered the mysterious web of connections that unites every point on our verdant planet, are on show for the first time.
The boundless cosmogony of Ria Lussi, alien artist, becomes immortal thanks to luminous, transparent and durable materials like Murano glass, stained glass and neon. The chromatic matrix of her creatures are hand-painted with ink on precious silk canvases… As an activist artist, she works ingoodcompanywith an excellent community of researchers, designers and artisans, and she believes that art is a primary need: Art can be inclusive, generous and sustainable! Within the Art Studios she hosts two young talents whom she supports in their artistic research: the cyanotype portrait photographer Anna Di Paola and the street jewellery artist Alessandro Sabong, known as 13TRUTH. She’s an expert in communication and education and her activities are powered by Arkage of Art Attack Group, a B Corp communication company, which she co-founded. With her projects, Ria Lussi supports the non-profit WeWorkItWorks.org in Madagascar.
In eUrban, one of Rome’s green hearts as well as future contemporary art district, with the collaboration of Rome Botanical Garden and with a concept by Ria Lussi, The Moving Forest was born: more than 400 trees of different species, in masts, that make a very futuristic urban area more beautiful and healthier.”To succeed in expressing the majestic bearing of the trees that animate this transitional forest with few, simple and rapid strokes, I adopted a contemporary technique: I made scribbles with a felt-tip pen which I have transformed into files that were reproduced in negative on flat backgrounds in a palette of twelve shades of green: this allowed me to re-evoke the idea of the forest with its infinite play of lights. The drawings reproduced on twelve linen canvases, mounted on wooden frames that have been seasoned for over twenty-five years, can be adopted by those who wish to participate in fundraising in support of WeWorkitWorks.org for the creation of a botanical park in the village of Antintoro on the islet of Nosy Komba, in Madagascar, in a virtuous circle with eUrban and the Botanical Garden”.
Je m’engage… Mi impegno… I pledge…
10 SIMPLE ACTIONS TO SAVE THE PLANET 😉
“What can we do in the face of the climate emergency?”
ALtogether, beings between human and plant, animal and mineral, seek an answer to this urgent question. These simple actions are a brief “poetic” synthesis of two precious texts: the Earth Peace Treaty by Thich Nhat Hanh and the Encyclical Laudato Si’ by Pope Francis. They can be disseminated in all languages and throughout the planet by any means possible. It’s not hard, it’s challenging!
“It’s urgent to take care of our common home, the planet and to take care of one another, in order to maintain the fragile balance of the ecosystem we all are part of in good health.” Pope Francis
eUrban is an urban evolution project that brings together people, business, contemporary art and nature. Born from an artist’s idea by Ria Lussi and created thanks to the meeting with Barbara Polito, of Silver Fir Capital and GWM Group, eUrban is an innovation laboratory in constant transformation in the heart of the EUR in Rome, imagined to improve the well-being of workers, residents and visitors through projects and actions guided by the UN Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals. Beating hearts of eUrban:
The Walkaround Gallery, an open-air public art installation, a choral work with 180 works by 12 different artists surrounded by the fascinating neo-rationalist architecture of the area; The Moving Forest, a transitional forest with more than 400 trees of 14 different species, in a tub, which offers a suggestive and unusual view from above and contributes to the absorption of CO2, the recovery of fine dust and polluting agents and the lowering of temperature; The Italian Zen Garden, a surprising olfactory garden with over 10 species of colorful medicinal plants and a centuries-old olive tree, a symbol of peace.
On display is a collection of ironic and playful self-portraits; it was inspired by Daina Maja Titonel’s invitation to close a two-year cycle of exhibitions dedicated to female artists. Lussi responds by challenging the current gender disparity through permutations of her “Rose”. Completed in acrylic paint on a round-shaped canvas, each portrait attributes an adjective to its “Rose”; in turn, this becomes an interpretive lens colouring the candid and metamorphic figure that emerges. Lussi’s sophisticated research into chromatic variations renders each of her roses unique. The exhibition is completed by a bust of Leonardo da Vinci in Murano Crystal (2016); three Rosaries (2016) in blown glass by Maestro vetraio Silvano Signoretto, and the excruciating “face” of Irene (2014), the only empress to have ruled in the fifteen-century history of the Roman Empire.
The reflection that emerges is a shared and striking concern with the gender gap. This is compounded by the gallerist’s own research: she used her expertise as a mathematician to develop a comparative statistical analysis of the state of the gender gap in the visual arts.
AL#0001: mitochondriac alien, visitor from future eras, cybernetic creature, made in aluminium, touching with his vibrant yet demure shine, resistance and lightness. Ria Lussi’s “nouveau né” is born from a collaboration with a designer team and artificial intelligence. From March 10th to April 30th 2020 Mucciaccia Contemporary Gallery hosts among the others allegoric creatures of Ria Lussi, the new Riflettenti (Reflecters) – silver-plated, engraved and sandblasted glasses – where are drawn some of the vices mentioned by the great European philosopher Giordano Bruno, in his work “Lo Spaccio de La Bestia Trionfante”. Through this series of philosophic portraits the spectator is called to interact playfully, recognizing himself while reflecting in them. This way you take up the artist’s implicit call to spontaneously make a collective action to partecipate to the Bestia Trionfante (Triumphing Beast) fall. The Bestia itself is portrayed, ink on silk, with a vibrant grey’s palette. Following the exposition’s path, the Matrici Cromatiche (Chromatic Matrixes), which embodied the virtues, sit enthroned on the upper floor. There, you can find also Old Giordano Bruno and Mnemosyne, in mirrored, blown glass, both works which inspired the artistic philosophic project which started in 2016.
Giordano Bruno, an unforgettable genius, master of artificial memory, a migrant among the Universities of Europe, was convinced that through the transmission of arts and knowledge, society could renew itself by “lighting up”. After reading enthusiastically the Spaccio de la Beast Triumphant, Giordano Bruno I imagined it thus… Curious, irreverent, volcanic, incandescent, indefatigable, optimistic, idealist, brilliant, universal. The only sure thing we know about his physical appearance is that he was small in stature. Perhaps this is why I imagined him squatted, ready to jump, with wings instead of arms! In good company with philosophers, artisans and acrobats, from 1 to 30 October 2018 the three-year project around Giordano Bruno “il luminoso” was carried out with a residence at the Macro Asilo. For a month a “room” of 15 meters by 8 as a scenic space has welcomed a series of actions around the great European genius and the participatory rereading of his book in which he expresses the fascinating concept of knowledge as an antidote to Ignorance, Inertia and the Bestiality that now as then afflicts humanity! In the post-digital era one can share the project with a global community, and also bring the younger generations closer to the function of contemporary art, which has a particular civil value in a public place.
Ria Lussi prefers an apparent fragility that increases the iconographic pathos, while re-proposing the aesthetic theme by incorporating the surface with its multiple depths in the different levels of transparency. Think about it, it’s no small thing that an artist manages to engage so deeply with the epidermises, breaking the arts & crafts of certain “popular” materials. Glass, neon or the illuminations transmute without losing their identity, cutting abnormal trajectories as only artists can make happen. Non-conforming trajectories are the blue-print of Ria’s inventive biology: and we see the cornerstones of humanistic thought (her references to philosophical and literary texts are many) giving form to a new iconic species, endowed with memory and vision, empathic by nature, alien in so far it is “other”.
Gianluca Marziani
Second Act Around Giordano Bruno
Light operetta in three acts, with epilogue.
“What are you doing, Hope, not surprising me, not prompting me?”
Resuming the ancient technique of luminaries, Ria Lussi build a 7-meter-high art work dedicated to Spoleto, a call for rebirth and optimism after the tragic earthquake of 2016. Presented by Gianluca Marziani, in collaboration with Municipally of Spoleto and Collicola Palace Visual Arts, the installation, is born from a pluriannual work of Ria Lussi on Giordano Bruno and on his book “Lo Spaccio de la Bestia Trionfante”. During the event the artist’s book will be distributed, in a limited edition, translated in contemporary Italian by Daniele Teclemariam and with the linguistic advice of Agata Azzellini, introduced by fifteen emblematic Ria Lussi’s drawings.
The first protagonist of this global project (multi-year and scattered): the Triumphant Beast, that is to say the sum of the vices that afflict and at the same time characterize mankind: Beast towards which I feel a sort of tenderness, so much as to give it a sweet look, while, fallen from Heaven by Jupiter’s will, it lands and immediately almost sinks to the Earth. The installation is made with the ancient technique of “luminarie”.
Giordano Bruno has been a master of artificial memory, which has allowed man to expand his horizons, until he reached with the understanding the unitary limitlessness of the universe.
«Ria Lussi’s Mitochondria is a never-ending mystery that discloses and reveals. A journey through multiple forms of expression explored with her endless creativity. The will to experiment, moored to the important theme of “procreation”. The vitality of her motto “all is energy, everything evolves” is the perfect synthesis of those power plants that activate cells: Mitochondria.»
Umberto Palestini
Sometimes «nomina sunt consequentia rerum (names are the consequence of things). How many unexpected lussi there are in the brightness of her work…
And furthermore, for those who are not too distracted, to recall is better: the etymology of “lusso” (luxury) is lux. How much light there is in these sculptures!!!»
Philippe Daverio
Through twelve portraits, from Julius Caesar to Constantine XI, the Series chronicles the transformation of the Roman and Byzantine Empire, which \”illuminated\” as it was by the Christian doctrine throughout its long history, renewed its moral code over time.
Text dy Gianluca Marziani e Adriano Berengo
This work, designed especially for the Callicola Visual Arts Building of Spoleto, joined the original framework of the Twelve Light Emperors of the Floridi Doria Pamphilj Series. Almost three meters high, the Matrix Imperatorum is now part of the 2.0 Collection of the Museum.
Visitors? Guests? Creatures? Mitochondrial devas?
Each W.O.L. is fierce and benevolent at the same time, helpless in its astonished innocence.
Forged by fire: ready to face earthly residence, not devoid of danger.
Testi di Jean Blanchaert
I have a dream, you have a dream, may you have a dream, for if they are not dreams, what are they? The characters I draw come to light unbeknown to me and come, I believe, from inifinity.
Or rather I cannot say neither where they come from nor where they go.
They seem to have stories to tell and are here on earth, a little unwary, disoriented…..
Testi di Umberto Palestini e Massimiliano Floridi
When I draw, it is usually with a black Bic pen. No turning back is allowed. The mediums I like to use are neon, silk, glass because they are all fragile and yet resilient materials. They maintain a shiny, almost inappropriate luminosity and at the same time, like human life, they could break in a moment. On the cosmogony of beings that spring (persistently) from my pen, I don’t say nothing. To those that meet them, interpret…
“Greenscovery” and “Viridia”
Rome, Botanical Garden Museum.
“Which kind of tree would you like to be?”
Rome, French greenhouse Botanical Garden Museum.
“ALtogether towards the Future”
Rome, 10 simple actions to save the planet.
“eUrban”
The Walkaround Gallery, The Moving Forest, The Italian Zen Garden.
Rome, urban regeneration project in EUR.
“Who is afraid of pink?”
Rome, Maja Arte Contemporanea Gallery.
Catalogue texts by Gloria Fossi, Umberto Palestini, Roberto Valenti.
From September 1 to November 13, 2021.
“Allegoria”
Rome, Mucciaccia Contemporary Gallery.
Catalogue Carlo Cambi Publisher: Texts by Umberto Palestini and Fabio Benincasa.
From March 10 to April 30, 2020.
“io sono giordano bruno”
Rome, MACRO Asilo.
Artist residency, from October 1 to 30, 2018.
“Fragile”
Roma, Galleria Mucciaccia Contemporary.
Catalogue Carlo Cambi Publisher: Text by Gianluca Marziani.
“La speranza”
II atto Intorno a Giordano Bruno
Operetta luminosa in tre atti, con epilogo
Spoleto, Giardini di viale G. Matteotti.
“The Triumphant Beast”
I Act Around Giordano Bruno
Light operetta in three acts, with epilogue
SP 328 km 45 Altamura – Corato, Altramurgia, Masseria di Cultura internazionale.
“Mitochondria”
Urbino, “Raphael’s House” and Botanic Garden.
Curated by Umberto Palestini.
Catalogue Baskerville.
“Lussi di Penelope”
Milan, Biblioteca del Daverio.
Published by Giunti: Text by Philippe Daverio.
“Matrix, Mater, Mother”
Spoleto, Palazzo Collicola.
Curated by Gianluca Marziani.
“Close Up”
Spoleto, Palazzo Collicola.
Curated by Gianluca Marziani.
Focus on Italian painting.
“Imperatori di luce”
Curated by Gianluca Marziani.
Texts by Gianluca Marziani and Adriano Berengo.
Geneva, Villa del Principe;
Spoleto, Palazzo Collicola;
Rome, Galleria Doria Pamphilj;
Milan, Villa Necchi Campiglio.
“Baculus”
Curated by Studio ‘A87
Spoleto, Palazzo Collicola
“Warriors of Light in support of Women of Madagascar”
Rome, Galleria Rosso20sette
“Death Dance”
Porto Ercole, Forte Stella.
Curated by Maurizio Cont and Gianmarco Serra.
“Warriors of Light”
Milan, Blanchaert Gallery and Biblioteca del Daverio.
Text in Catalogue by Jean Blanchaert.
“The Volcano, the estuary”
Trapani (Sicily), Vicaria Palace, Sgarbi Foundation.
“Excesses of an Estuary”
Rome, American Embassy – Mel Sembler Gallery.
“Orfeo”
Rome, Ferro di Cavallo Library and Gallery.
“Have a dream”
Milan, L’Affiche Gallery;
Rome, Tricromia Gallery.
Texts in Catalogue by Umberto Palestini and Massimiliano Floridi
