is the exhibition-event of the artist FRANCO CIPRIANO, which opens on Saturday 7 May 2022 at 6 pm, in the spaces of the Irpino Museum, a monumental complex of the former Bourbon prison in Avellino.

Proposed by the MONTOROCONTEMPORANEA review, with the patronage of the Province of Avellino and the Municipality of Montoro (AV), the exhibition has the cultural care of the philosopher Ernesto Forcellino – author of the main text in the catalog – and the artistic direction of Gerardo Fiore.
On display, works from 1992 to 2022, which articulate a thought of art that is irreducible to modes of stylistic conformity or artistic news. Over time, the ‘inactivity’ of the artist’s research has shown itself in a dense originality of language, which questions the very memory of the artistic gesture, recalling its immemorial roots.
The path of Cyprian, which has been made over time in dialogue with philosophical and poetic thought, has traced an open path to the reflection of the controversial destiny of art, thinking of the work as a ‘tragic’ place of the unsoluteness of the definition of things, in the ‘wandering’ of any expressive and representative stability. For the artist, the work is the “body of the soul” that seeks and seeks itself, in a counter-time of language in language itself, which accesses silence and absence, which in the creative gesture reveal the ‘conflict’ originating between world and non-world, disagreement that art holds as a visible mystery, an inexplicable feeling of the vitality of the sense of art.

The philosopher Ernesto Forcellino writes:
“[…] And this perhaps allows us to understand better the reason for a ‘doing’ – like that of Cyprian – which proceeds” upward “, by subtraction, as if to recover and make tangible, in the things that emerge, the unreflected movement or the unconscious kept in them, the tacit unconsciousness of (their) nature. However, trying to let this unawareness vibrate precisely, thus not leading it to the surface of consciousness, but rather – not elsewhere than on the surface itself – to show the unconscious as unconscious. So it is as if the artistic work tried to slip away in the gesture it composes, delivering us to the illusion – still necessary – that those same images, those same figures, in a certain way preceded the work to which they owe their presence. As if they too had already (always) been there, like the stone, the branch, the earth they host and from which they are hosted. Things, ‘materials’, that collaborate with the work or resist it, placing, so to speak, a limit on the creative hand, in giving us back a remote and hidden history – anterior to man – which we also look at, although it does not seem to concern us.
It is a story that settles like ash on the forms (hence their ‘essential’ chromatism), suggesting their mystery, to the point of ‘touching’ that uncertainty point of the chronological order capable of trespassing, one might say, in a ‘ archeology of temporality ‘to the same extent that he works on an archeology of the image, deconstructed and’ stratified ‘. ”

The exhibition can be visited until May 31, 2022, from Tuesday to Saturday: 9 / 12.30 – 16 / 18.30
For info and contacts: 389 1629853

Franco Cipriano, born in Scafati in 1952, lives and works in Naples, Scafati, and Parabita (LE). He has been active in the art scene since the 1970s, with exhibition and theoretical and critical writing practices. He is interested in the relationship between art and thought by dialoguing with various figures of Italian philosophical culture. His artistic activity has multiform paths. The practice of painting and writing crosses multimedia, performative experiences and project forms for the organization of art and culture. He has been a promoter, since the seventies, of artistic and cultural intervention groups, conceiving and creating exhibitions, actions in urban spaces, organizing meetings and performative actions, as an interaction of languages, themes and issues of the Contemporary
He is the author of critical and poetic texts, published in magazines, monographs, volumes and catalogs. His recent monograph HISTORIA (Grafica Metelliana Edizioni, 2015) collects the many traces of dialogue and comments of his work by philosophers, historians, critics, artists, poets, writers.
Creator in 1973 of OCT (territorial communications operations). He was the creator and art director of Spazio Zero11 in Torre Annunziata, Naples. He was supervisor in the activities of the Di.St.Urb collective. He promoted and coordinates “Artlante, a community of studies and initiatives for contemporary art”. He collaborates with the international philosophical magazine “Shift” directed by Daniela Calabrò, collaborates with the philosophical magazine “Kaiak” and with “definitions, contemporary art magazine”. He is a member-minister of the Neapolitan Pataphysical Institute. He is the artistic director of the magazine “Un coup de dès”, Esi editions, Naples.
Among the collective exhibitions and reviews:
“Politikaction”, 1972 Centro Sud Arte Scafati, Prop art, Galleria Libreria Guida Napoils, “Images for a city”, 1974, Galleria Colonna Naples, “The School of Naples”, 1978, Galleria Numerosette, Naples; 1981, “Presence and memory; seven Italian artists at the beginning of the 1980s “, Palazzo Ducale San Cesario di Lecce; 1983,” Art Itinera 83: Persistence of painting “, Castiglioncello; 1985” Italie aujourd’hui ‘: Glances on Italian art from I970 to 1985 ”, National Center of Contemporary Art, Villa Arson, Nice. He participated in the X and XI and National Quadrennial of Art, Rome, 1975/1986. In 1986 “The Scafati workshop”, in Scafati and Arezzo; 1987, “Works-Rare Avis Alfano, Cipriano, Longobardi, Pisani, Tatafiore”, Castel dell’Ovo, Naples. 1998, “Naples front”, Santa Maria la Nova, Naples. 2001 participates in “Insorgenze del classico”, Villa Campolieto, Ercolano; 2009 “Dialoghi di luce”, Scafati; 2013 “Anamorphosis of truth”, Spazio Zero11 of Torre Annunziata, “Contemporary visions”, Ravello; 2014 “Die Werte der Gemeinschaft / The Value of the Community”, at the Stuttgarter Kunstverein e.V., Stuttgart, Germany; “Resurrectio”, Abbey of S. Pietro in Ruoti Bucine Arezzo; “Rewind”, Museum of Naples Novecento, Castel S.Elmo, Naples. In 2015: “Artlante Vesuviano”, Tekla Sarno and Scafati Real Polverificio Borbonico; “Resurrectio Theatrum Resurrectionis”, Abbey of S. Pietro in Ruoti Bucine Arezzo; “Resurrectio” Unusual Art Gallery, Caserta. In 2016: “Walls to Art”, Serrau Gallery, Naples / Paris; “Creative Station / Prophecy” MIL Space, Sesto S. Giovanni, Milan.
You are present with a video-interview in the audio-video installation Città Limbo by Aldo Elefante, already exhibited at the Madre Museum. His work “Disagreements of the origin” (1986) is exhibited in the Naples-Novecento collection at Castel S. Elmo. Works by him present in the FRAC Museum in Baronissi and in the Montoro Contemporary Art Fund as well as in various private collections.
Among the most important personal exhibitions: “L’oro di Karl Marx”, 1980, Galleria Libreria Minerva Naples; 1981, “Il Grifo” Gallery, Rome, “Finisterre” in 1991 and “La cenere del cielo” in 1993, EnzoEspositoArte Contemporanea Napoli; “Absentia Picta”, Suor Orsola Benincasa Institute, Naples. of 1995; In 1999 he exhibited “Il Canto di Orfeo” at the Italian Institute for Philosophical Studies, Naples and “Body transcendental” at the Municipal Gallery of Contemporary Art, Scafati. “Traces, non words, three books” is the exhibition-conference at the Menna Foundation in Salerno. In 2001 a personal exhibition at the Giulia Gallery in Rome. At the Camaldoli Monastery, Arezzo, in 2006 he created the “Dell’immemore” exhibition. In 2007 is the anthology “Of extreme memory”, Frac Museum, Baronissi. In 2010 is the personal exhibition “Kataphysis”, at the Museum of Villa Rufolo in Ravello, with texts by Stefania Zuliani and Vincenzo Vitiello. In 2015 “Taking the name off things”, Spazio Zero11, Torre Annunziata, Naples; in 2016 “Studio, Cipriano / Terminiello”, Unusual Art Gallery, Caserta; “Templum”, Convent of S. Maria degli Angeli Torchiati in Montoro (AV), edited by Montorocontemporanea. In 2017 are the exhibitions “Mysterium, bibliotheca philosophica” at the National Archaeological Museum of Naples and “Mistero clear, cataphysical library” at the Galleria Primo Piano, in Naples; “Ikonostasi” (texts by Ernesto Forcellino and Luca Palermo) at the Irpino Museum in the Monumental Complex of the former Bourbon Prison, curated by Montorocontemporanea.
For the Municipality of Parabita (Lecce) he takes care of the program of exhibitions “Parabita Arte” in the historic Palazzo Ferrari. Starting from 2020, he has created the exhibitions “Mater Nostra” and “The look of the Muses”.