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Pitti Palace

Tesfaye Urgessa. Beyond
18.12.2018 - 03.02.2019

The rooms of the Andito degli Angiolini in Pitti Palace host the exhibition on Tesfaye Urgessa from 18 December 2018 to 3 February 2019.

The thirty-five pieces on show in the rooms of the Andito degli Angiolini in Pitti Palace reflect the explosive creativity of Tesfaye Urgessa, born in Addis Ababa in 1983 and moved to Stuttgart in 2009, where he lives and works. The selection includes mainly works from the last two years, with just a few important exceptions. Thus, if Trapped in the Flesh - painted on the occasion of the Florentine exhibition - has been chosen as the opening focus, the arrangement is in chronological order and starts with Waiting from 2010.

The exhibition also includes a drawing and four monotypes to exemplify Urgessa's familiarity with the techniques and materials, as well as a Self-Portrait donated to the Uffizi Galleries and displayed in a symbolic pairing with a hypnotic Portrait of a Man: not a self-portrait painted using a mirror or a photograph, but a portrait from memory, also passed through the powerful filter of the artist’s imagination. .

The exhibition is curated by Eike Schmidt and Chiara Toti.