Fabrizio Passarella: Bollymood

Studio Andrea Gobbi opens this exhibition season with the one-person show of the Bologna-based artist Fabrizio Passarella. After his retrospective exhibition at the Temple University two year’s ago, Passarella returns to Rome to present his latest work called “BOLLYMOOD”. This project assembles over a year’s work where the ideas, inspirations and insights that have always concerned the artist are explored further; he has always favoured researching the interaction between cultures in his aim to acquire greater awareness and knowledge of self and his society.

BOLLYMOOD evokes the two most important film industries on the planet: Hollywood’s America and Mumbai’s India, each reflecting their apparently distant and parallel cultures. Ultimately however, they have fostered universal icons which have managed to affect the sensitivity of people around the globe so successfully that each society has created its own galaxy of stars and dreams. Gianluca Marziani wrote that Passarella reveals himself as “…a FILMIC ARTIST capable of inventing perfected icons that contain a slice of narrative in each single image. The pattern goes like this: layers of fiction on top of each other, fakery on top of fakery to evoke the impossible aspects of cinema with scenes and details of a bi-dimensional, yet architectural gaze edited together from invented visuals. (…) Passarella turns his painting into a dissonant montage which remains in tune, (… and ) combines these superstar faces (Marlene Dietrich, Anna Magnani, Montgomery Clift, Brigitte Bardot, Totò, Gina Lollobrigida, Sophia Loren, Rita Hayworth, Marcello Mastroianni…) with writings from different sources, advertising, postcard rhetoric, animal, erotic flowers, popular illustrations, skulls, precious stones, emaciated idols, tea bags, open fruit and musical instruments.”. Fabrizio Passarella was born in Contarina (N. E. Italy) in 1953 and now lives and works in Bologna. Before his debut one-person show in 1983 he had already exhibited in private galleries, as well as public and museum spaces around Europe and in the Middle East. Other significant one-person exhibitions include: L’Immagine elettronica at the GAM Bologna, 1985; Itinerari (Musei civici di Reggio Emilia, 1995); La luna, la croce, la stella (Palazzo Fizzarotti, Bari, 1995); Worlds in small room 1981-2001 (Temple University, Rome, 2001). And in the following galleries: Gallerie Inga Pin in Milan, Studio Cristofori in Bologna, Studio Carbone in Turin, Ruggerini & Zonca in Milan and lastly, Placentia in Piacenza. The most noteworthy group exhibitions include: Italia 90, Ipotesi arte giovane (Fabbrica del Vapore in Milan, 1990); AnniNovanta (GAM in Bologna, 1991); Medialismi (Villa d’Este in Tivoli, 1992); Medialismo (Trevi Flash Art Museum, 1993); Così lontano così vicino (Pinacoteca Provinciale in Bari, 1994); Icastica (Galleria Comunale d’Arte Moderna in Bologna, 1994); Ritratto Autoritratto (Trevi Flash Art Museum 1994); XII Quadriennale Rome (1996); Arte italiana Ultimi quarant’anni (GAM in Bologna, 1998); Effimera (Villa delle Rose Bologna, 2002).

Andrea Gobbi & The GalleryApart present

Fabrizio Passarella
Bollymood
Kurator: Gianluca Marziani