In the exhibition Darklight Christmas 2010 curated by Giulia Collina and Tiziana Gazzini, the Don Chisciotte Gallery will present 28 original works by the Italian-American artist Gaialight (www.gaialight.com) that celebrate an unusual Christmas in which light is devoured by shadow and good cheer is truly put to the test.

The exhibition is also a debut of Gaialight’s new artistic project based on the darklight technique (black and white in exasperating contrast), which also becomes the ideal metaphor to illustrate some of the deepest and little known aspects of American reality.

The core images of this exhibition, elaborated, sublimated and abstracted by the darklight treatment, come to us from Florida, where in February 2010 Gaialight photographed The Holy Land Experience, one of the most extreme theme parks upon which the economy of the city of Orlando is based (Disney World is simply the most well-known).

For 35 dollars – the price of a one-day pass to The Holy Land Experience - you can take part in the last supper and attend two daily Crucifixions and their respective Resurrections as well as share in the Nativity experience, naturally.

This is an experience of the sacred that is rather out-of-the-ordinary, somewhere between performance and devotion, pop culture and traditionalism, which Gaialight interprets through her mix of Bauhaus, in an optical version of Josef Albers (her Artist Residency at the Josef and Anni Albers Foundation left its mark), and Pop Art, Dadaism, Surrealism and Conceptual Art.

All the Christmas icons are represented. There is a Holy Family with a Madonna who is more Pop than the rock star (Maddy). In Darklight Christmas 2010, the Christmas trees, which there is no shortage of, are cypresses and weeping willows or are lit up at the base of Calvary (Crucifixion). The angels are those of Justice and Peace, Purity and Liberty. Though along with the Awakening Angel, they cry or turn their backs or bow their heads to show their despair, while the Three Wise Men, as dictated by tradition, are distinguished by their sparkling crowns (King of Kings) and their opulent coffers (Treasure).

The images in Gaialight’s 2010 Pop-Conceptual Art are never innocent, but rather are mercilessly symbolic of the present day. For example, in Leo & Lambs small silent angels are frightened by the roar of a lion and crushed by its power. This is the metaphoric declaration of the pain caused by a wound as well as by scandals such as the cases of pedophilia that the Church, especially in America, has only in recent years acknowledged.

Darklight Christmas 2010 alludes to the Cardinal Sins and Vices marking the end of the first ten years of the third millennium of the Christian era, and Gaialight challenges the oxymoron, bringing together light and shadow, good and bad, sin and redemption, while defining her new creative process making its public debut in this exhibition.

 Inauguration December 2, 2010 at 6.30 p.m.

Don Chisciote Gallery - Via Angelo Brunetti, 21 a/b – 00186 Rome - Tel: 0039 06 3224515

info@galleriadonchisciotte.com www.galleriadonchisciotte.com
  
Catalogue/ in gallery - Text by Tiziana Gazzini

 The exhibition has been organized in collaboration with

La coda dell’occhio Cultural Association – www.lacodadellocchio.com

 PDF        GAIALIGHT ON ART OF LEADERSHIP SERIES / THE MAGAZINE