From April 13 to May 6, 2021, State Of___ exhibit Just Want To Be Loved, a solo show of Flavia Albu curated by Marta Orsola Sironi. The exhibition presents a series of art works created exclusively for Areté Showroom.
The title “Just Want To Be Loved” is inspired to William J. T. Mitchell’s “What do pictures want?”. Flavia Albu’s recent production is inspired by Mitchell’s reflection on the complex and plural identity of images and their relationship with willingness and power.
Three small paintings from the “Still Life” series (2021) are displayed at State Of____. Through a transversal vision, the artist extrapolates images from the sphere of the exasperated visibility of pornography. The purpose is to assign them to the fetishism of the picture-object as an entity to collect and possess. The three canvases find their ideal display thanks to three works of art made by Cecilia Mentasti (“Soft Soft”, “Lay me down”, “Love is love”, 2021): three transport crates specially designed for the occasion. These crates belong to the cycle “Protect what you love” that began in 2018. With this series, Cecilia Mentasti reflects on the concept of care and how the display can influence the reading of the artworks.
Flavia Albu has also created two works in reflective material, respectively “Untitled” (2021) and “LWY” (2021) which insist on the ambiguity of the image and the fascination exerted by symbols of power.
The topic of the painting (“Untitled,” 2021), which resembles the Byzantine icon of an angel, is actually the pattern traced in the sky during a military air show. Instead, unlike the other works, “LWY”, a dragon-sized luminous whip, does not conceal but visually enhances its status as an object of power and pleasure.
By combining different media images, various pictorial types and supports, the artist questions the connection among the sphere of visibility and power, starting from the painting and its forms.
The works shown at State Of___ hover in the blurred space of the subliminal, of what “seems but is not”. From there they establish a perpetual oscillation between innocence and ambiguity, between the possibility of freedom and the imposition of the gaze.
Installation View
Flavia Albu – Installation view at Aretè Showroom – Just Want To Be Loved – Courtesy the artist and State Of – Milano IT – ph Francesco Paleari
