The exhibition is composed of two groups of works—one dating from 1970 to 1972, the other from 1977 to 1980—which respectively open and close a fundamental phase in De Filippi’s research. This phase is overall dedicated to the theoretical positioning of an ideal figure of the artist at the intersection of cultural trajectories in which art history converges with anthropology and ancient philosophy, according to a radical sense of archetypal descent of all meanings—including that of the artist himself, to whom the exhibition title alludes. During these years, the transition takes place from an initial, behavioral and sculptural exploration of the mirrored themes of the anatomical body and the linguistic body, to their subsequent iconographic synthesis, first through the use of drawing and later through the definitive embrace of a conceptualized painting. Among the artist’s references to antiquity is the idea of a “popular art,” narrated sequentially and within an ideal space, without borders or edges—like Byzantine icons—concerned with the enactment of body and space.
The exhibition documents the entire operational process that, from January to June 1970, prepared the actions and sculptures that would form Antropologica, the exhibition event later held at Torre Astura in July, centered on the casting of the artist’s body mold into the sea. This event also marked the beginning of De Filippi’s fruitful collaboration with Gian Tomaso Liverani and the La Salita gallery. During the opening, the action Chiedo il sosia – sosia (Narciso), conceived at Galleria Schema in 1972, will be reenacted. As revealed by the artist’s title, it is a question and an answer resolved within himself, returning to the theme of double identity and painting understood in mental terms; the glasses “contain” the action just as the book literally contains the head of a motionless body that does not see.
Two roughly contemporary works—Autoritratto impossibile (a small painting first exhibited in 1972 at the center of a large white canvas) and Levitazione (a photograph from 1971)—distill the paradoxical and metaphysical character of De Filippi’s artistic sensibility. This spirit goes on to permeate his painting—here represented by two key examples, Tre figure con inserto (1977) and A. in posizione di equilibrio (1980)—as well as the extraordinary series of drawings that occupied the artist for several years. Focused on a more social and dramatic dimension, these works form a kind of virtuosity of forms, costumes, and human types, which Mario Diacono described as “social-baroque.” From this series, which includes numerous drawings on small- and medium-sized paper—such as Untitled (head) from 1978—the exhibition presents some of the rarer large-format works on cardboard, all from 1978: Folla; L’euforia e il dubbio; Tentativo euforico.
This exhibition follows the recent publication of two volumes dedicated to the work of Ferruccio De Filippi, both published by Cambiaunavirgola Spazio Etico (Rome), whose contents are interwoven here. Euforia, Dubbio, Travestimento (2020), with a text by Diletta Borromeo, presents a series of drawings selected together with the artist and addresses the crucial node through which conceptual art is later resolved into painting. Io sono un frammento archeologico (2022) is the volume Pasquale Polidori dedicated to Ferruccio De Filippi within the artistic project Solventi, which focuses on language as a medium of visual art. In addition to texts by De Filippi and Polidori, the volume contains extensive photographic documentation of De Filippi’s works from 1970 to 1974, by Mariella Bolzoni.
All photographic documentation is by Mariella Bolzoni, and the prints were produced from original negatives by the professional photographic laboratory Fotogramma24 Bugionovi & c.