About the show -

By Raffaella Salato, Contemporary Art Expert

 

The relationship between the artist Marco Angelini and the city of Abu Dhabi, dating back a few years ago, is reconfirmed and successfully consolidated with this exhibition, divided into 4 cycles of different but complementary works, which intend to compose an abstract but absolutely intelligible narration ‒ through the senses even more than with the mind ‒ of a fascinating territory full of differences, divided "between city and nature", that is, "between city and nature", concrete and glass on one side and sand and ocean from other.

 

Abu Dhabi is a capital city, home to the capital of the United Arab Emirates and the federal government. It is a veritable metropolis, a core of political and industrial interests, but also an important cultural and artistic centre in full development. However, the life of its inhabitants is closely linked to the natural context: Abu Dhabi stands on an island, it is characterized by the Corniche Road (as the promenade is called) which extends for 12 kilometres while in the vast desert area there are two vital oases with large underground aquifers.

 

Thus, water, sun, and sand, become the leitmotif of this exhibition, evoked, and suggested in the abstract forms that animate Marco Angelini’s canvases, propagating back and forth through the fluidity of line ‒ and its recurring colours like yellow, blue, white, brown ‒ which are distinctive features of the following elements: an immaterial glow as well as an elusive character of liquids (the “superfluid” borrowed from quantum mechanics). Art and science constantly dialogue in Angelini’s artistic technique, just as the desert dance meets the mountain ranges.

 

The works of the cycle entitled “Desert Cities,” are particularly suggestive because the anthropomorphic forms on the canvas recall the colours of the typical clothes of the Arab Emirates (white for men, black for women), and place them on predominantly two-tone backgrounds, where earth and rock nuanced tones predominate, enlivened by bright, almost unexpected bursts of colour reminiscent of local artisan bazaars and spice markets.

​