Personal Exhibition @ Finarte Auction House Space
Updated: Sep 27
FACE TO FACE
AN EXHIBITION BY MARCO GUENZI
curated by Valentina Laneve
Former Finarte Space, Piazzetta Bossi, 4, Milan
November 14–21, 2013
Face to Face ("Di Volto in Volto") presents Marco Guenzi’s exploration of the themes of self-portraiture and facial expressiveness, ranging from his most recent oil paintings to his latest photographic works. The exhibition unfolds as an intimate visual journey of discovery into the emotional world of the Self and the dark side of the Ego, in a interplay of tensions between the stirrings of the soul, identity and the unconscious, being and appearing—crucial themes of our time.
The former Finarte space is hosting a solo exhibition by artist Marco Guenzi, titled “Face to Face.”
The exhibition presents the artist’s exploration of the themes of self-portraiture and facial expressiveness: an intimate visual journey to discover the emotional world of the Self and the dark side (“unheimlich”) of the ego, in a interplay of tensions between the emotions, identity and the unconscious, being and appearing—crucial themes of our time.
In Guenzi’s work, the self-portrait takes on a different meaning than that proposed today by the media, whose intent is to reproduce a real image—one that resembles us—or a social image—the one we want others to have of us (such as the one we construct through social media)—or an ideal image—one that reflects our desires and compares itself to our idols.
From the series of large oil-on-canvas works Naufragio emotivo (Emotional Shipwreck), painted with the fingers, to the works in the Perturbante Con.turbante series, in which the artist uses a variety of organic and inorganic materials, to the new, previously unseen experimental photographic works, the exhibition unfolds according to the concept that art is a means of expressing one’s inner reality. Through the creative process—which takes on a cathartic, almost apotropaic quality—the artist lays bare his or her own image before himself or herself, as if facing a mirror, in order, as Stefano Ferrari explains in the book Lo specchio dell’Io, to retrace the stages of the formation of his or her own self and to rework the anxieties related to a sense of identity; and to transform it until it becomes unrecognizable and to deny it until only one’s mask remains visible.
