Catalog of the exhibition “Giorgio Tentolini, Cantami o Diva”
Opening on Thursday, April 10, the exhibition dedicated to the impalpable art of Giorgio Tentolini is hosted by Galleria Russo.
Five years after his last project, Diacronie, and following his recent participation in the Venice Biennale with Nemo propheta in patria, Giorgio Tentolini returns to exhibit in Rome with a project that creates a dialogue between classical culture and contemporary themes.
Imagery has always been the starting point of Giorgio Tentolini’s artistic work. Through it, the artist explores reality, reclaims the past, and reflects on the future in an eternal circular motion that recalls Homeric and post-Homeric tradition—the inspiration behind Cantami, o Diva.
Tentolini’s iconography is timeless, and his technique—composed of delicate layers of mesh or tulle—gives life to figures that emerge and dissolve, offering a representation that is simultaneously presence and absence.
In this project, faces drawn from classical statuary serve as a counterpoint to the portraits of female characters from the Homeric tradition, reimagined as synthetic figures through the use of AI.
Whether interpreting Greek sculpture or crafting forms born from the vast realm of artificial intelligence, the image becomes the genesis of Tentolini’s every reflection. He selects female figures and deities as symbols of a deeper reflection on the human condition: they become the starting point for an exploration of emotions, vulnerabilities, and fragilities—topics that convey resilience and a universal resonance.
Tentolini’s research is not only aesthetic but existential—an analysis of our being in the present, imbued with a sense of tragic and ongoing transience, like that evoked in Homer’s proem, where glory is fleeting and conflict eternal.
This project evokes the proem of Homer’s Iliad, where the human condition, personal conflicts, and divine affairs are intertwined, urging the viewer to confront the boundaries and fragility of existence.
To paraphrase Crimp, it is in the absence of the “original” that representation finds its strength, as each figure is already a representation of reality—a reality that is forever in flux.
Thus, as in Homer’s words, the beauty and tragedy of existence reveal themselves and dissolve, in an eternal cycle.
Catalog published by Gangemi Editore.
