Omar Galliani

With his exhibition, “Omar. Roma. Amor”, at the Carlo Bilotti Museum, the cosmopolitan and visionary artist Omar Galliani pays tribute to his strong ties with Rome. These are revealed in full by the large, previously-unseen work that has been created especially for the exhibition, and from which it takes its name; a gigantic pencil drawing on poplar panel, daringly and provocatively romantic. “For me”, the artist writes, “Rome is the metropolis that, more than any other, has passed through time devouring and regenerating it, in a succession of pagan and religious rites that have always been on a sharp knife’s edge”.
This book, including an essay by the exhibition’s curator Gabriele Simongini and poems by Omar Galliani and Robert Mussapi, offers an innovative interpretation of the artist through some previously unpublished works. According to Simongini, “Galliani samples and contextualises the great traditions of Renaissance, Mannerist and even Symbolist drawing in their various shades. He then short circuits them with atmospheres similar to Goth music, with specific films (from Antonioni to Ridley Scott), with images taken from glossy magazines (“Vogue”, “Harper’s Barzaar” etc.), with the corporeal  concerns of body-art and post-humanism, giving rise to work that is hybridised and intense, opening up across the board and going well beyond the usual high pictorial references (Correggio, Leonardo etc.) summoned by commentators on his works”.

Rome, March - May, 2012