Francesco Cabras | URBAN ICONS. THE DEMOCRACY OF THE WALL
From 03/10/2013 To 27/11/2013
Two solo shows by Francesco Cabras, photographer and director,(Rome,1966) will be exhibited at Raffaella De Chirico Contemporary Art Gallery, offering a selection of intimate a dramatic pictures which shows a tout court research of the artist.
URBAN ICONS. The Democracy of the Wall will take place in the Main Hall of the gallery and consists of about 20 pictures that show a series of posters posted up, which suffered the consequences to be at the mercy of the natural and human intervention. Therefore, posters are converted into an anthropological gallery of true portraits, where life and death live with, in truce.
Subjects are iconic but heterogeneous, choice that adheres to the eclecticism of the artist, free from moral and political judgement; many of them are unknown or very well known protagonists of Palestinian, Middle East and Lebanese conflicts.
Without decollage interventions, Cabras sketched posters of suicide bombers, political leaders, attack victims, religious leaders, Hezbollah, Christians, soldiers and civilians. But not only. Religious iconography is expressed by some Virgin Mary portraits, dramatically present in territories where the cult encourage fights but Faith is often absent.
A touching sequence of the Pope Giovanni Paolo II remind us the famous bent profile, teared up.
A series of eight images of Arafat are inserted in a unique printing and shows us the historical political leader weathered-beaten and in some occasions, disfigured by the varnish.
Regarding the subtitle, The Democracy of The Wall, Cabras says:” Interesting is the democratic and compassionate power that the wall returned them after living as soldiers, dominators or dominated, a compassion and a sort of equality marked by billposting and the deterioration in front of everybody’s eyes. A public corridor (the street) where everyone become the same because of the rain, rips and sprays. And I thought it was worthwhile to search, stop and interpret”.
Therefore, the concept of the wall as symbol of division and abuse of power (as Berlin wall during the Cold War or recently Israel) has been overturned, legitimizing the deterioration of the Icon/Character.
Regarding the second solo show, in the Project Room will be exhibited a selection of SCRAPS, already showed at Crossroad Gallery, in Capalbio, in 2011, accompanied by critical texts by Oliviero Beha and Bruno di Marino.
Raffaella De Chirico Gallery is also preparing a monographic catalogue which collect some Cabras cycles of works, among them BDSM. Techniques of consolations, which will be exhibited in Milan, via Tortona 19, from November 5 to December 22, at the temporary space DE CHIRICO-UDOVICH CON-TEMPORARY.
BIOGRAPHY
Francesco Cabras is a photographer and director based in Roma, Italy. The following is a condensed selection of his activities.
PHOTOGRAPHER, VISUAL ARTIST
Francesco Cabras started to write and to photograph professionaly in 1986 as collaborator of italian rock music magazines (Rock Magazine, Rockstar, TuttiFrutti, Ciao 2001 etc). Then he started to travel and live extensively in Asia, Middle East and Latin America becoming a reporter of cultural, enviroment, travel, touristic and social civil issues. His reportages (text and pictures) has been published by the main italian press (Airone, Avvenimenti, L’Europeo, La Repubblica, Isole, D-Donna, Gioia, Il Manifesto, Panorama, L’Espresso, Nuova Ecologia, Master Viaggi, etc). Among his subjects are the street gangs in Honduras, the Kumbh Mela festival in India, the Burmese struggles, the iraqi sufis, the tribes in Siberut Sumatra, the enviroment in the Andaman Islands etc.. In 1995 he is the second journalist in the world to interview Nobel Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi right during her home arrests in Rangoon. Since then he started a collaboration with Greenpeace which stands up to now. As photographer he did also several music CD covers and booklets (Al Di Meola, Nada, Sergio Cammariere, etc), and realized human right campaigns for NGO’s as ‘Un ponte per Baghdad’ and ‘terres des Hommes’. As writer his fairytale ‘L’isola della Cquorina’ gains the ‘Andersen’ and ‘Chatwin’ prizes and it is published in the ‘Bruce Chatwin’ anniversary Moleskine notebook 2007. He wrote contributes and chapters for guidebook on India, Burma and Amsterdam (Moizzi, Ram editors). Other short novels has been published on literature magazines. Cabras currently dedicates his work as photographer only to personal research, fine art and expositions. With Alberto Molinari co-direct visual art works for art channel 'Cult Tv' among which 'Paleoliche' gains the first award at Roma videoart 'Festarte' letting enter Cabras in 'Young Blood', the prestigious publication of italian artists awarded in the world. Their work becomes the promotional art film used by Greenpeace for the wing energy campaign. ‘Gente che conta’, another visual installation is displayed at 'Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci di Prato'.
EXIBITIONS:
•‘Memoranda’ personal exibition (Roma, Istituto Geografico Italiano/Isiao Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente. Milano, open air Corso Vittorio Emanuele. Frosinone Palazzo civico). 2011
•‘Scraps’ personal exibition (Capalbio, Galleria Crossroads. Sestri Levante, Palazzo comunale. Pisa, Spazio Urma) 2012
•‘Faces’ personal exhibition (Roma, Goa club) 1998
•‘Massagrigia’ collective exibitions (Roma, different locations) 2004
You may also find more details and samples of his works in this links:
www.francescocabras.com
www.massagrigia.it/cabras_francesco/index.asp
3 october – 17 november, 2013
From tuesday to saturday12 AM – 20 PM
E: info@dechiricogalleriadarte.it
Ph: +39 011 19503550