The exhibition, curated by Massimo Belli, presents a conspicuous portion of the neatly chaotic macrocosm that has always characterized the work of Felice Levini (Rome, 1956), and his ironic reading of the world-system. Canvases, papers, installations, sculptures and devices alternate seamlessly, immortalizing the contemporaneity with biting elegance.
Felice Levini was one of the founders, in 1978, of the independent space of S. Agata de’ Goti in Rome, in which art, poetry and music alternated from dusk to dusk as a bulwark of expressive and cultural freedom in reaction to the decade of repression. Starting from academic discipline, over the decades, Levini has introduced performative activity and human presence into his language: this physical openness of the artistic medium - according to an animalistic attitude reminiscent of the chameleon's camouflage - has allowed the artist to ‘enter the folds’ of history, re-interpreting it and thus re-living it. Despite this plurimediality, Levini's work does not cease to remain firmly anchored to the pictorial realm.
Protagonist of two Biennales - the XLIII in 1988 and the XLV in 1993 - and two Quadriennale exhibitions - in ‘86 and ’96 - his work has crossed the Millennium, still exuding the profound sense of a society of fallen idols, which the artist has ironically held in the palm of one hand with irreverent classicism. Patiently pouring out history through his graphic marks, Felice Levini tells the story of mankind in the history of the world, from prehistory to this exact second, showing a more complex cyclical nature, which moves out of two dimensions and, from a circle, turns into a sphere.
The exhibition is in close dialogue with the show taking place at the same time in Pavilion 9a of the Mattatoio, Centuria by Giuseppe Salvatori, the artist and friend with whom Levini shared not only a long career but also an artistic and poetic language, is presented. In 1978, Salvatori and Levini were, among others, founders of the S. Agata de’ Goti group of artists and writers; later, Renato Barilli included them in the Nuovi-Nuovi art movement, on the occasion of the exhibition at the Galleria d'Arte Moderna in Bologna in the spring of 1980. A bond, therefore, that has stood the test of time, from the beginnings in the 1970s to the sharing of more recent projects, such as the Realia exhibition cycle at the La Nuova Pesa gallery, up to the current exhibitions at the Mattatoio in Rome.
Felice Levini's exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue edited by Massimo Belli, with texts by Aurelio Picca, Renato Barilli, Francesco Moschini and Massimo Belli published by Silvana Editoriale.