both the soul and body. Sexual voracity seems exaggerated consequence of moral frigidity of a social class shaped by luxury and consumption. At the same time we feel a genuine sense of wonder in front of the miracle of painting when with it we immortalize the passing of life in an expression or in a form, an exciting or pleasant sensation, a feeling of benevolence or compassion in a line or in a color staring forever that magical moment in which the being of a thing or a woman or an expression never sets but rises again pictorially every time and forever. In his career, Currin has tackled noble and vulgar genres and subjects, in an outrageous and even grotesque way revealing flaws, defects, pains, idiosyncrasies, the pathological side of the libido and the anguished excitement, inscribing each element uncanny, even if it was a suffering, a pain, the anguish, in a similar or otherwise painted surface.
The paint layer, in fact, appears disdainful and fast, slow and thoughtful, meticulous and painstaking, immediate and mocking. On show a series of paintings unreleased in Italy and chosen by the artist in dialogue with the extraordinary collections of paintings and sculpture of Stefano Bardini Museum, a great Florentine antiques and collector of the nineteenth century. It includes family portraits (Rachel, his wife, his three sons Francis, Hollis and Flora), allegorical portraits (Flora, The Penitent, The Lobster) wife portraits (Bent Lady, Anna, Big Hands), female nudes (Nude in a convex mirror). Artworks presented for the first time in Italy accompany to Donatello’s Madonnas, bronzes and porcelains, carved frames, seventeenth-century paintings, medieval wooden sculptures. We can find also some drawings, well representing the prodigious technique of Currin, in dialogue with the "disdain" graphics by Tiepolo and Piazzetta, about whom Bardini Museum preserves a very fine series of specimens. The exhibition sponsored by the City of Florence, is organized by Mus.e, in collaboration with Gagosian Gallery, and with support from Faliero Sarti.
John Currin. Paintings
June, 13 - October, 2 2016
Stefano Bardini Museum
Florence, Italy