WHAT WILL REMAIN ONCE WE HAVE FOUND THE ANSWER?
​Opening 26th June 2021

We often search outside ourselves for what has been inside all along. The lockdown had many repercussions in our lives. It showed us our vulnerability; we understand that it is not possible to cut off relationships and human contact for too long without consequences to our psychophysical health. It showed us the stress and busyness of our daily lives, and eventually we realized that the important and essential things in life are but a few. But above all, it showed us that the answer is within us. We were forced to stay “inside”, not only physically within the walls of the houses but also within ourselves. After this time of transition and interiority, eleven painters have been invited to discuss how the ups and downs of lockdown have influenced and changed their artistic practice of painting. A practice envisioned as a process of inner discovery, healing, demolishing inner obstacles and as a form of protest.

What’s really important in life? Although we may already have the answer, we seem to constantly forget. Isn't it perhaps the game of life to look for answers, find them, then forget them and repeat the cycle until we pass away? During this endless lockdown we have been exposed not only to our deepest thoughts and fears but we have also reflected on what is really important to express in our lives, such as love for our friends and family, solidarity towards the weak, and a strong creative impulse. In spite of the closure of all art spaces, many artists felt the impulse to keep working silently without an outlet to share their work, displaying the essentiality of artistic practice. It is an impulse that accompanies us from the time of cave paintings, when by torchlight, the brain was trained to follow the footsteps of the imagination, even before humans could speak words and have a structured language. Primitive creative practices allowed humans to hunt with precision, imagining scenarios to predict the actions of its predators. From there, humans eventually reached a point where its creativity is directed to the service of self, what Théophile Gautier and many other philosophers described as “art for art's sake”. This term expresses the intrinsic value of art, divorced from any didactic, moral, political or utilitarian function. Creativity became autotelic (from Greek: autoteles, 'complete in itself'), a concept that describes an inner-directed or "self-motivated" human being. Painting seems not only to belong to the very essence of human expression, but also assumed a special relevance, both in the past for the sake of our evolution, and into the present for the expression of our culture. Looking at the past from a changing present, we see that painting has never abandoned us. Even during a global pandemic, it has become an even more a sincere instrument for recording the development of human consciousness over time.
Curated by Andrea Mineo


Artists:
Marina Pohl, Andrey Kharitonov, Diana Karlssone, Iana Go, Chan Seth, Max Weiss, Hildur Henrýsdóttir, Luca Pravato, Antony Di Leonardo, Aurelia Braga De Matos, Andrea Mineo.