The artworks of Enzo E. Mari shown on the occasion of this exhibition are part of his production cycle made with the frottage technique.
The subjects are mostly faces that are represented a three-dimensional connotations thanks to this pictorial practice: Mari creates first of all low reliefs on which he subsequently applies fabrics of various kinds that are pictorially processed.
The representations of those portraits take on iconic connotations and, thanks to this achronic aura, the works can be easily combined with masks. Yet in observing them, the viewer perceives the corporeality of those paintings, the fabrics in fact, together with the materiality of the painting, recreate an effect that is extremely similar to that of the skin.
From the paintings the transfiguration of the mask into the character emerges in a disruptive way, and the viewer perceives the organic physiognomic nature of the subject. The combination of fabric and leather makes those characters wearable by the observer, with the tension of the individual dictated by the empathic feeling.
The latter is the underlying concept of the Greek tragic production: the viewer is reflected in the protagonists and through their vicissitudes obtains catharsis for himself, thanks to a process of identification. Mari’s works therefore allow us to perceive the physicality of this process, which evolves in a contemporary key in that desire, not always fulfilled, to understand the unspoken from the point of view of others. On the other hand, in placing oneself in front of those faces, the portraits become the mirror of the observer, recalled even just by a usual detail but “getting out of [man’s] skin meant finding oneself without skin. More than naked: skinned. ”
These are the words of Emmanuel Carrere that highlight how complex it can be, after seeing a bit of oneself in the other, in the work, to move away from what has been discovered.