In Lucca Centre of Contemporany Art there is an exhibition that i would be a real shame to miss. The central theme is a bull.
Several versions of it in different poses: charging, still, defeated, playful and enraged. Never passive. Always challenging. You may have alreay noticed a large coloured bull lying down in Piazza Scalpellini, nera Piazza Anfiteatro, off via Fillungo. On its rear is written: “It isn’t true but i bielieve it”
The bull which took nine and half months to make appeared out of nowwhere on day, and is part of the exhibition.
Christian Balzano comes from Livorno where he was born in 1969. he’s extremely versatile: he works in plaster, animal, skin, canvas, wood, acrylic, resin, copper, acid, plastic and gold leaf. He uses words, video and photography; he paints, model scratches and engraves. He also incorporates music smells into this fascinating show. It is part installation, part animation, part sculpture, largely paintings, but most excitingly it asks the audience to partecipate. And this audience can include everyone from adult to child.
As soon as we walk into the museum we get a sense of what we are to see in the rest of the show. On one wall there are over 50 small iconic pieces in brilliant reds, blacks and golds some framed of Buddhas, cherubs, Madonna, hearts, candelabras, bulls, the star of David, the hal moon and chinese dragons.
A collection of references which reappear throughout the exhibition. Over the reception area is there a sequence of witty photographs of people wearing bull’s heads. If you follow the exhibition upstairs you come to a large room with paintings.
After you can find two rooms, Black or Red, you must choose….you have to discover this for yourselves..
There is anothe room off the main one, with a series of exquisite wooden plates on the wall, with figures drawn in gold leaf. Upstairs there is anothe area, essentially divided by the colours the artist has chosen to frame his works: white, red, black and gold.
Going back to the bull lying in the little piazza near Via Fillungo. Is the bull defeated? Beckoning? Toying with us? Has it fallen^ Decide for yourself. Touch it. Climb over it. That’s what the artist wants!
The exhibition runt until 21 of february.
Lu.C.C.A.
Via della Fratta 36 – 55100 LUCCA – Tel. +39 0583 571712
www.luccamuseum.com
