Galleria Russo inaugurates on Friday, October 3, a solo exhibition by Sergio Fermariello titled The Warrior and His Simulacrum.
Conceived by the artist specifically for the gallery spaces, the exhibition presents previously unseen works created expressly for the occasion. Some of these pieces engage in dialogue with works by Giuseppe Capogrossi, Lucio Fontana, and Carla Accardi, included in the exhibition by Fermariello himself, as a testament to a shared sensitivity with 20th-century artistic expressions that reach our present day in a renewed form.
In 1987, Fermariello began using a Rapidograph pen and India ink to trace multitudes of stylized figures: this is how his unmistakable warriors were born — silhouettes reduced to their essence and multiplied across the canvas against contrasting fields of color. These early works, which earned him the Saatchi & Saatchi International Prize for Young Artists, were also presented at the historic Neapolitan gallery of Lucio Amelio.
Fermariello’s painting is dominated by the sign, understood as a form of writing — an inner alphabet expressing the language of the unconscious, nourished by suggestions and references to Eastern art. On a formal level, his art fits into the tradition of Italian gestural abstraction of the 1950s and ’60s, echoing and expanding upon the investigations of masters such as Giuseppe Capogrossi, Lucio Fontana, Pietro Consagra, Arnaldo Pomodoro, and Carla Accardi.
Fermariello’s work conveys a vital melancholy which, as Demetrio Paparoni highlights in the essay accompanying the exhibition catalogue, becomes a driving force and a means for exploring memory. Paparoni writes: “The warrior emerges as an emblematic figure of the contemporary condition, simultaneously embodying the idea of conflict and that of protecting the community. He is always ready for sacrifice and pervaded by a death drive that manifests in humanity’s destructive tendencies.”
Rich in philosophical, sociological, and psychoanalytic references, Fermariello’s art distills its message into a warrior — a symbol of the individual stripped of the ability to make an impact in a society increasingly virtualized, where technology progressively replaces the human being.
With around twenty works, the exhibition invites the viewer to interpret forms, colors, and compositional balances that are essential to Fermariello’s expressive language. The artist’s preferred materials — canvas, aluminum, and marble paste — in turn give energy to a sign-based alphabet in constant evolution.
