Julio Larraz: Complesso del Vittoriano, Rome

The showing, presented by the Contini Gallery of Art, is curated by Achille Bonito Oliva , organized and coordinated by the agency Comunicare Organizzando under the direction of Alessandro Nicosia.  Julio Larraz, considered one of the leading Latin-American artists, introduces us to his creative universe in which the representation of power and it polymorphic effects occupies an important role. An eternal and controversial theme dealt with ironically by the artist by incessantly bombarding legends and obsessions bound to resolute supremacy, revealing its irrationality and inconsistency through his images. With penetrating allegories the artist reduces power to forms and color, revealing its “weaknesses” and shows us the only way of containing it – games. By magnifying proportions , reversing equilibrium, underlining the unreal, Julio Larraz disarms power even when it presents itself under a seemingly innocent aspect. His works differ extremely, yet they are cohesive as well. There are repetitive motifs, objects and ideas that can be found in different contexts, and thereby changing the importance. They reveal an allegorical and dream-like perception, a quiet suspension of waiting for something unspoken. The diversity of his works is cemented in a singular, visionary, and fantastic, and imaginary expression that takes its inspiration from Surrealism and Metaphysics, from Mexican muralists and from 15th C Italian art. The artist in fact transfers his ample cultural, social and political references to his art drawn from Greek mythology and contemporary Latin American history.

The artist brings to the Victorian his ironic invectives and his burlesque portraits, strongly hostile to every genre of abuse, every misuse of power, and every deliberate injustice elevating the “people’s” morality to a veiled and playful protest.