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Luisa Rabbia - Viewing Room - Peter Blum Gallery, New York

Peter Blum Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of new paintings and works on paper by Luisa Rabbia entitled Inferno. This is Rabbia's fifth solo exhibition with the gallery and will be presented at 176 Grand Street, New York. There will be an artist’s reception Thursday, March 30, from 6 – 8pm. The exhibition runs through May 20, 2023.

Throughout her career, Luisa Rabbia’s work has explored the psychosocial nuances of humanity from the individual to the collective experience. Her intuitive and emotional approach leaves behind a collection of traces on the surface of the canvas that while evoking temporality also allow for reflections on the spiritual.

In her newest series, taking visual cues from Sandro Botticelli’s Map of Hell (1480-1495)—a key drawing from a series of 92 commissioned to illustrate Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy—Rabbia reimagines Hell within the landscape of the human body. She eschews religious connotations to instead investigate more personal, terrestrial Hells that are part of the human experience. In the works, Botticellli’s circles of Hell become rib cages, their bodies stripped bare of skin and flesh as Rabbia excavates the surface, scraping away paint to reveal visceral, expressive worlds of inner turmoil.

The exhibition Inferno will present a group of large oil on canvas paintings as well as a series of nine works on paper titled The Inferno, Broken in Nine Pieces, which specifically represents conditions such as anxiety, helplessness, loss, separation, war, loneliness, injustice, and pregnancy with an unwanted child. The paintings expand on this theme to include manifestations of evil using the same corporeal composition, thereby further addressing the nature of suffering in the world today.

"In a world of fragmentation, I am seeking a discourse that connects and could possibly raise sentiments of empathy."

— Luisa Rabbia

Luisa Rabbia and Veronica Santi speak about the works on paper included in the exhibition, produced in conjunction with The Inferno, Broken in Nine Pieces at The Drawing Hall in Bergamo, Italy

Sandro Botticelli, The Map of Hell (1480-1495)

Sandro Botticelli, The Map of Hell (1480-1495)

"I have been reflecting on a terrestrial hell in the studio for a couple of years through a series of works on canvas and paper. When I approached the idea of representing nine emotional states for what became The Inferno, Broken in Nine Pieces, I only knew that I would make nine works on paper—nine like the circles found in the Inferno of the The Divine Comedy. A picture of Sandro Botticelli's drawing, The Map of Hell, was on my work table when I started drawing the first lines. In an instant, in my work, human ribs took the place of Dante's circles and a head took the place of the sphere where Botticelli had represented Lucifer."

— Luisa Rabbia

 

Loss, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 62 inches

Loss, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 62 inches

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"The green towards the top of Loss, like a distorted mirror image of Botticelli’s Map of Hell, reassures us of an external world where we can catch our breath, while below, the torso stretches from one side to the other, following the direction of two hands that touch but do not clasp, the beginning of a separation that inevitably leads to a break, recalling the cycle’s title."

— Veronica Santi, The Inferno, Broken in Nine Pieces

Abuse, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

Abuse, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

Inquire
Francis Bacon, Study After Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953                         

Francis Bacon, Study After Velázquez's Portrait of Pope Innocent X, 1953                         

 

"(...) Abuse is perhaps one of the most disturbing works in this cycle. Where Botticelli depicts Lucifer in his Map of Hell as an elusive celestial semicircle which becomes a magnifying glass to enlarge the Devil’s entire silhouette, Rabbia depicts the visage of a victim, their mouth open in a frozen cry. In horrifying contortion, the spinal column is stuck inside their teeth, burning along with the rest of the inverted skeleton. The figure’s hands lie helpless on the monochrome blue background in a sign of defeat and psychic separation from the pain that the body is registering. The echo of another frozen cry—Francis Bacon’s iterations of Study After Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X—resounds in the repeated openings in Rabbia’s skeleton, forming the shape of an “o”(…). A formal dialogue with Bacon is also present in this work, as both artists share a violence in harsh and vibrant vertical gestures, which make up the background and the form of the seated Pope in one work, and explode the neck and jawbone in the other, as the red crayon is repeatedly scrawled up and down or scratched away." 

— Veronica Santi, The Inferno, Broken in Nine Pieces

 

Separation, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

Separation, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

Inquire

Helplessness, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

Helplessness, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

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The Unwanted Child, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

The Unwanted Child, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

"The title of this drawing is The Unwanted Child because it is indeed a hell to be carrying an unwanted child, and it is a hell to be unwanted as a child."

— Luisa Rabbia

War

War, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

 

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Anxiety, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

Anxiety, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

"The drawing Anxiety, instead, resonates with Rabbia's earlier works, such as Birth (2017), and Source (2016), in which the navel is represented by a solitary white fingerprint. No longer a symbol of the cosmos or unity, the stark reality of this mark resembles a wound sewn in red-brick fear, seething inside, swelling and displacing the centre of the world in the pit of one's stomach."

— Veronica Santi, The Inferno, Broken in Nine Pieces

Injustice, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

Injustice, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

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Loneliness, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

Loneliness, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches

Inquire

 

 

Luisa Rabbia in conversation with Elisa Muscatelli, produced by The Blank Contemporary

Bird of Prey, 2022

oil on linen

80 1/2 x 121 1/2 inches

Bird of Prey, 2022

oil on linen

80 1/2 x 121 1/2 inches

Inferno, 2021-2022

oil on canvas

84 x 60 inches

Inferno, 2021-2022

oil on canvas

84 x 60 inches

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"(...) Rabbia’s figures have solid roots in classical modernism and to my mind are a consummate statement on the unconscious or, more precisely, what psychoanalyst Viktor Frankl referred to as the 'spiritual unconscious.' (...)The artist’s paintings are successful 'compromise formations,' as Freud said of dreams, that reconcile the life and death instincts: the former integrative, the latter disintegrative. One of the reasons her works are emotional as well as aesthetic masterpieces, not to say triumphs of the imagination, is that they make use of the modernist heritage in a singular way. She makes the dialectical terseness of abstract art wonderfully capacious and resoundingly clear."

— Donald Kuspit, Artforum

 

The Beginning, 2023

oil on linen

84 x 47 1/2 inches

The Beginning, 2023

oil on linen

84 x 47 1/2 inches

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Wailing Women, 2022

oil on linen

84 x 49 5/8 inches

Wailing Women, 2022

oil on linen

84 x 49 5/8 inches

"Wailing Women reflects on the long history of the suppression of women's voices. As important as it is to acknowledge how much has been achieved over the years, still, this battle is not over. But what is remarkable is that women very often work quietly to change things from the inside, through their relationships, often their intimate relationships. The wailing is often interior, and barely audible, but it is there and women know it. Like a silent but active prayer it keeps women connected throughout space and time."

— Luisa Rabbia

Broken, 2023

oil on linen

84 x 48 1/2 inches

Broken, 2023

oil on linen

84 x 48 1/2 inches

Inquire

Lucifer, 2022

oil on canvas

84 x 60 inches

Lucifer, 2022

oil on canvas

84 x 60 inches

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Clessidra, 2022-2023

oil on linen

49 1/2 x 34 inches

Clessidra, 2022-2023

oil on linen

49 1/2 x 34 inches

Inquire
Luisa Rabbia - Viewing Room - Peter Blum Gallery, New York

Luisa Rabbia (b. 1970, Turin, Italy) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin, Italy. Solo museum exhibitions include: Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston, MA; Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires, Argentina; Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice, Italy; Fondazione Merz, Turin, Italy. Group exhibitions include: Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, Cold Spring, NY; Westmont Ridley-Tree Museum of Art, Montecito, CA; Reggia di Venaria Museum, Venaria, Italy; Manifesta 12, Palazzo Drago, Palermo, Italy; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome, Italy; Biennale del Disegno, Museo della Citta, Rimini, Italy; Lismore Castle, Waterford, Ireland; Shirley Fiterman Art Center, New York, NY; Maison Particulière, Brussels, Belgium; Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA; Museo del Novecento, Milan, Italy; MAXXI Museo Nazionale delle Arti del XXI secolo, Rome, Italy; Shanghai Museum of Contemporary Art, Shanghai, China.

Loss, 2022, acrylic and wax pastel on paper

Loss, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 62 inches (114.3 x 157.5 cm)

(LRA22-06)

Abuse, 2022, acrylic and wax pastel on paper

Abuse, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches (114.3 x 81.3 cm)

(LRA22-01)

Separation, 2022, acrylic and wax pastel on paper

Separation, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches (114.3 x 81.3 cm)

(LRA22-07)

Helplessness, 2022, acrylic and wax pastel on paper

Helplessness, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches (114.3 x 81.3 cm)

(LRA22-03)

The Unwanted Child, 2022, acrylic and wax pastel on paper

The Unwanted Child, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches (114.3 x 81.3 cm)

(LRA22-08)

War, 2022, acrylic and wax pastel on paper

War, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches (114.3 x 81.3 cm)

(LRA22-09)

Anxiety, 2022, acrylic and wax pastel on paper

Anxiety, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches (114.3 x 81.3 cm)

(LRA22-02)

Injustice, 2022, acrylic and wax pastel on paper

Injustice, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches (114.3 x 81.3 cm)

(LRA22-04)

Loneliness, 2022, acrylic and wax pastel on paper

Loneliness, 2022

acrylic and wax pastel on paper

45 x 32 inches (114.3 x 81.3 cm)

(LRA22-05)

Bird of Prey, 2022, oil on linen

Bird of Prey, 2022

oil on linen

80 1/2 x 121 1/2 inches (204.5 x 308.6 cm)

(LRA22-16)

Inferno, 2021-2022, oil on canvas

Inferno, 2021-2022

oil on canvas

84 x 60 inches (213.4 x 152.4 cm)

(LRA22-11)

Wailing Women, 2022, oil on linen

Wailing Women, 2022

oil on linen

84 x 49 5/8 inches (213.4 x 126 cm)

(LRA22-10)

Broken

Broken, 2023

oil on linen

84 x 48 1/2 inches (213.4 x 123.2 cm)

(LRA23-01)

Lucifer, 2022, oil on canvas

Lucifer, 2022

oil on canvas

84 x 60 inches (213.4 x 152.4 cm)

(LRA22-15)

The Beginning, 2023, oil on linen

The Beginning, 2023

oil on linen

84 x 47 1/2 inches (213.4 x 120.7 cm)

(LRA23-03)

Clessidra, 2022-2023, oil on linen

Clessidra, 2022-2023

oil on linen

49 1/2 x 34 inches (125.7 x 86.4 cm)

(LRA23-02)

*All works are subject to availability; all prices are subject to change.
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