Alexey Morosov: Pontifex Maximus

Exhibition by the Russian famous artist Alexey Morosov, a co-production by Moscow Contemporary Art Museum and Naples National Archaeological Museum, with the patronage of Ministero dei Beni Culturali, and Comune di Napoli, finds its perfect location, among some of the world most important collections of classic art.
Alexey Morosov, just back from the success obtained with his solo show in the prestigious Moscow International Biennal, has conceived this exhibition especially for the Naples Museum, as a site-specific installation.
Exhibited simultaneously with the great show Myth and Nature (showed at the same time in the Museum in Naples and in Pompei), both art shows deal with the same concepts and iconography.
Russian Artist, great admirer and studious of classic culture since his early years in art college, Alexey Morosov has designed and realized a complex of sculptures in order to bridge the classical and the contemporary culture and at the same time east and west culture, as the title of the show highlights.
Morosov fresh back from media clamour stirred by the art works realized for the Lifetime Achievement Award of the International Lucca Film Festival, addressed to great movie directors such as Paolo Sorrentino, William Friedkin and George Romero, titled the exhibition “Pontifex Maximus”, adopting the thousand-years-old concept of bridge (pontifex = bridge builder, from latin pons facere) in its complex and manifold meanings.
Bridge as space that embodies a collective nature and Energy as art work does, injecting sense in the place that host them. It connects past and future, and it is a symbol of Eurasian culture.
Bridge as “temenoi” in the mythological thinking, the area of the temple, surrounded by religious premonition of epiphany, and divine phenomenon, but also considered a corridor among sacred and profane (in the Zoroastrian tradition).
Also in the realm of philosophy bridge has been, in its metaphysical essence the subject of many authors such as Kant and Heiddeger (Marburg Lectures).
Morosov takes inspiration from classic iconography, disrobes it from original historical and symbolic meaning to charge it with new ones, of contemporary contents.
In an undefined world as the one we live in today, in which moral and ethic values mutate continuously, classic culture and iconography, provide a landmark.
The sculptures and paintings of the Russian artist, keep the original attitude of classic and Greek culture, to represent the hidden order behind the chaos of the world.
Morosov takes the classic iconography from the past, installs it in a sort of future post apocalyptic scenario, in order to talk about the present in a visual manner.
Even the selection of the materials follows this criterion, blending art works made by bronze and marble as in the classic tradition and some made by new materials and techniques made available by new technologies.
The bronze sculpture are produced in Pietrasanta, using the artisanal technique coming from classic tradition.