Massimo Giannoni’s painting is the protagonist, until Dec. 4, of an exhibition hosted by the Russo Gallery, curated by Lorenzo Canova. Giannoni paints places that are complex and dense with meaning: bookstores and libraries, business exchanges, metropolises, forests, environments with contrasting characteristics brought to miraculous unity by an entirely personal style and technique. The artist, in fact, follows his own unmistakable line, autonomous from the conditioning of fashions and trends, a path solitary one that began at a mature age, having spent the first part of his life traveling. The worlds simultaneous worlds that make up the seductive system of images – thirty-six works in oil on canvas – prompt reflection on the capacity for analysis of reality that the language of painting demonstrates still possesses. A tool of interpretation that is not at all obsolete even when it comes to expressing contemporaneity, thanks, Lorenzo Canova writes, “to what many consider its its limitations, such as the load of history that precedes it or its slowness of execution.” Giannoni, moreover, has never doubted the possibilities of the medium he handles with consummate skill and true passion: “I like painting, using manual dexterity, making an art that is recognizable to everyone.” Dropping into the depths of topical places, complicated entanglements of symbols and life seems to be the nag that moves his painting. It was therefore inevitable, in the end, the comparison with
Rome, quintessential city of stratification, an elusive metropolis that, overlooked from above in the artist’s most recent production, becomes almost comprehensible. The exhibition catalog is enriched by an interview with the artist edited by Marco Tonelli.
