FRANCESCO PETRUCCELLI

Tortured Portraits of Social & Political Condemnation

Francesco Petruccelli

Berlin, Germany

“Vandalism and iconoclasm are paradoxical ways to find new meanings in artworks. I grew up in Italy, surrounded by innumerable instances of cultural exuberance – in the form of architecture, sculptures and paintings – none of which was able to mirror actual social problems and urgent moral dilemmas.

It was important for me to demolish the distant gaze of those portraits and the absurd postures of those statues in order to find a relationship between my past and my present. And, if I cannot find a valid connection to my cultural heritage, I feel the need to hurt it, burn it, censor it.

Yet the torture that my artworks have to undergo has a kind of shamanic function as well. The process of destruction can reveal hidden identities, connections with aspects of the soul that can only become visible by a laceration of the epidermis of individuality.

My portraits disclose the inconsistencies of social and political masquerade. During a residency in Donbass I injured the face of the President of Ukraine and also that of the President of the self-proclaimed Donetsk People’s Republic. I only wanted to devaluate their nationalistic orientations. But soon after, one of them actually died, as if by an act of voodoo.”

Text by the artist

Francesco Petruccelli Untitled, 2019 Concrete, pigment and metal 45 x 60 x 18 cm See availability @ricegallery.art

Francesco Petruccelli Untitled, 2019 Concrete and pigment 37 x 48 x 10 cm See availability @ricegallery.art

Francesco Petruccelli Untitled, 2019 Concrete 35 x 60 x 12 cm

Francesco Petruccelli Untitled Concrete and pigment 35 x 42 x 15 cm See availability @ricegallery.art