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Lewis Hammond, Drowner, 2020, Olio su tela: 30 x 60 cm, Courtesy L\u2019Artista & Arcadia Missa<\/i><\/p>\n
[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space height=”10px”][vc_column_text]Phlebas the Phoenician, a fortnight dead,<\/i>
\nForgot the cry of gulls, and the deep sea swell<\/i>
\nAnd the profit and loss.<\/i>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 A current under sea<\/i>
\nPicked his bones in whispers. As he rose and fell<\/i>
\nHe passed the stages of his age and youth<\/i>
\nEntering the whirlpool.<\/i>
\n\u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 Gentile or Jew<\/i>
\nO you who turn the wheel and look to windward,<\/i>
\nConsider Phlebas, who was once handsome and tall as you.<\/i>
\nT.S. Eliot, \u2018Death by Water\u2019 from\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>\u00a0(1922)<\/p>\n
Casa Masaccio | Centro per l\u2019Arte Contemporanea is delighted to present\u00a0While We Were Sleeping<\/i>, the first\u00a0solo exhibition\u00a0staged in a museum by Lewis Hammond (1987). This project was conceived following a period of study that the artist, a guest of the Artist-in-Residence Program, spent in Tuscany last autumn exploring the history of the region\u2019s art.<\/p>\n
An appreciation of the connections and conversations between works of art, however great the distance in time that separates the lives of their creators, is combined in Lewis Hammond\u2019s artistic practice\u2014through an involvement with the history of painting and the ways in which this can be used to reflect on the time and space of our existence. The visitor is greeted on entering the exhibition by the image of a figure drowning in inclement waters, an allusion to motives for reflection that are expressed through the symbolism of figuration.<\/p>\n
The lines of\u00a0\u2018Death by Water\u2019 from\u00a0T.S. Eliot\u2019s\u00a0The Waste Land<\/i>, with their variations in tone and meditative character, with their different levels of expression, act as the supporting structure for the layout of the exhibition and prompt us to remember our own mortality. It is a sort of continual textual presence that illuminates the background of the images, dissolving into an aphorismatic movement, somewhere between visionary evocation and scenic iconicity. The concept of transformation, from flowering to wilting, from birth to death, from the beginning to the end, and the oscillation between these polarities, structures the unfolding of the exhibition. The representation is set in imaginary devoid landscapes, of foreboding and nostalgia, stifling interiors, dark nights and volcanic flames, pitch and fire and a land that is about to be submerged by a flood of red, as Walter Benjamin observed, defining his poetry as \u2018truly political\u2019.<\/p>\n
–“Many of my paintings show characters in disorientated states where their bodies appear mutilated, multiplied or mutating. The bodies absorb the violence of a hostile and dystopian present, of homogenised and reductive spaces in which individuals find themselves in a perpetual quest for self-identification,”<\/i>– declares the artist, alluding to a condition of deprivation on the part of humanity, which no longer knows anything of semiotics. On the walls of the \u2018house\u2019, among the raw materials of its architecture alternating with monochromes in green earth, as was typical of cloisters in Masaccio\u2019s day, Lewis Hammond\u2019s painting absorbs the reverberations of an intangible horizon, pointing to a subjectivity that no longer has a subject, displaced from its own and original location and thrust into ontological disorientation.<\/p>\n
The perfection of the origin makes the fall stand out more strongly and Phlebas, the Phoenician, has forgotten the cry of gulls.<\/p>\n
Lewis Hammond<\/strong>\u00a0(b. 1987) lives and works between London and Berlin. Born in Wolverhampton, UK, he completed his Post-graduate Diploma in 2017 at the Royal Academy Schools, London.<\/p>\n Hammond makes oil paintings that represent psychological states, using aspects of his own lived experience to inform the work. Intertwining art historical and pop-cultural references to build worlds, subjects find themselves in a perpetual quest for self-identification. Imagined landscapes and constrained architectural spaces evoke anxiety and alienation with the abjection of racialised bodies, fears and desires.<\/p>\n Previous solo exhibitions include\u00a0Still Life<\/i>, Lulu, Mexico City (MX), 2020,\u00a0The Keep<\/i>, Arcadia Missa, London (UK), 2019. Hammond has shown his work at group exhibitions including\u00a0Possessed<\/i>, MO.CO, Montpellier (FR), 2020,\u00a0We Shall Survive in the Memory of Others<\/i>, Galerie Barbara Weiss, Berlin (DE), 2019,\u00a0A House is Not a Home \/ A Home is Not a House<\/i>, Kunsthalle\u00a0Fribourg,\u00a0Fribourg\u00a0(CH), 2019,\u00a0In \u200b\u200bmy Room<\/i>, Antenna Space, Shanghai (CN), 2019,\u00a0Byrd Hammond Klossowski Olowska<\/i>, Balice Hertling, Paris (FR), 2018,\u00a0In the Flesh<\/i>, Peles Empire, Berlin (DE), 2018,\u00a0Condo<\/i>,\u00a0<\/i>with Arcadia Missa and Lomex, New York, US (2018).<\/p>\n While\u00a0We\u00a0Were\u00a0Sleeping<\/i><\/strong>\u00a0has been realised thanks to the support of Arcadia Missa<\/strong> and in collaboration with\u00a0Black History Month Florence<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Black History Month Florence<\/strong>\u00a0was founded in 2016 is a cross institutional network for Black cultural production that celebrates Afro-descendent Cultures in the context of Italy. The initiative is engaged in programming, advising and co-promoting over 50 events annually within the month of February, through a network formed and supported by the Comune, foundations, institutions, cultural associations, museums, schools and venues dedicated to art and to music.<\/p>\n The digital opening, that will be live-streamed on Casa Masaccio | Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea website and Facebook page will see the participation, besides\u00a0Lewis Hammond<\/strong>, of\u00a0Valentina Vadi<\/strong>, Major of Comune di San Giovanni Valdarno, Fabio Franchi<\/strong>, Culture Assessor of San Giovanni Valdarno, Fausto Forte<\/strong>, Director of Casa Masaccio\u00a0|\u00a0Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea, Rita Selvaggio<\/strong>, Chief curator\u00a0of Casa Masaccio\u00a0|\u00a0Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea and curator of the exhibition,\u00a0Justin Randolph Thompson<\/strong>,\u00a0co-founder and co-director of Black History Month Florence,\u00a0president of the cultural association BHMF,\u00a0Janine Ga\u00eblle Dieudji<\/strong>,\u00a0co-director and Vice President of the cultural association\u00a0BHMF and Exhibitions director of the Museum of African contemporary art Al Maaden (MACAAL) in Marrakech.[\/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]REOPENING<\/strong> In compliance with the provisions for containing the Covid-19 pandemic, the exhibition will be open to visitors following the safety protocols set by the museum, and on the following days and times:<\/p>\n Monday: closed On Saturdays and holidays, access will be allowed only to people with a reservation to be made online or by telephone (at least one day before the visit).<\/p>\n Reservations can be made, during the museum’s opening hours, by calling 055 9126167 or by writing an email to casamasaccio@comunesgv.it<\/a> including name, surname, municipality of residence and telephone contact.[\/vc_column_text][vc_empty_space][vc_button title=”PRESS KIT AND IMAGES” target=”_blank” color=”btn-inverse” size=”btn-large” href=”https:\/\/www.dropbox.com\/sh\/wapfdgubjeypus0\/AAD8A7kmbkY4MxaMqDwX6GvCa?dl=0″][vc_empty_space][vc_column_text]
\nCasa Masaccio | Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea is pleased to reopen its doors to the public this Tursday, April 29 with While We Were Sleeping, first solo show in a museum institution by Lewis Hammond (1987). The exhibition will be hosted in the museum’s spaces until August 8, 2021.<\/p>\n
\nTuesday – Friday: 15-19
\nSaturday and holidays: 10-13 \/ 15-19<\/strong><\/p>\n