Michele Bubacco: ToHotToHot

“ToHotToHot” – a palindrome title whose meaning can be found but still makes no sense – presents a series of works that show some fundamental aspects of Michele Bubacco’s poetics and practice: movement, conviviality, exchange, and dialogue. The majority of the works on display depict suspended encounters in time between theatre and mythology. The use of collage blending with oil painting creates a breach in space-time: in one painting, some characters meet and dance on a table suspended over water, in another, two men find themselves on a deserted island, sheltered only by a palm tree, silently drinking a bottle of wine, one of them appears to fixate on something, but perhaps is merely gazing into the distance.

The series of “lavagnette” features cut-out characters, faces taken from the paintings of masters such as Tintoretto, one of the first artists Bubacco studied, the late Titian, and also 20th-century painters like Luigi Tito, Vedova, and Mušič. Paint applied with fingers, with a rough and visceral approach, recurring elements like bottles, glasses, arms, legs, dogs, microphones, fragmented images that move in an alternation of sound and silence; microphones to speak, to remain silent, or to sing.

Michele Bubacco’s works seemed perfect to inaugurate a new convivial and cultural space in Venice. His painting perfectly represents our way of feeling and living in this moment. His paintings narrate our dreamlike world and represent the theatrical and farcical environment in which we exist. Michele Bubacco’s extraordinary sensitivity allows his brush to traverse art history, engaging in dialogue with the masters and bringing them back to the present. Visiting his studio was an immersive experience that led us to choose the works together with him that form this personal exhibition, in which we wanted to construct a narrative that speaks volumes about us, about our way of being together, and about the city in which we live.

In an interview from a few years ago, Bubacco said that art is like the mirror that shields Perseus from Medusa. Venice is also a mirror, a water city reflecting and giving life to a double, abstract, and theatrical image. It is on this suspended stage that we encounter Michele Bubacco and his works.

Curated by Mara Sartore and Lara Morrell.

Image Credits: Installation View, Michele Bubacco “ToHotToHot”, 2024. Photos: Anna Lott Donadel.