Angelo Filomeno's 60 Works on View in Lecce Retrospective

The Must museum in Lecce presents 'Angelo Filomeno. Works. New Millennium,' a retrospective curated by Massimo Guastella featuring over sixty works from 2001 to 2023. The exhibition includes embroideries, drawings, watercolors, sculptures, and installations by the Italian-American artist born in Ostuni in 1963. Filomeno, who participated in the 52nd Venice Biennale and recently exhibited at Mart in Rovereto, learned weaving techniques from his mother in San Michele Salentino. He worked for major fashion brands in Milan before moving to New York in 1992, where he created costumes for theater and film. In the early 2000s, he developed 'painted embroideries' using a Singer sewing machine, evoking dreamlike, archaic, and tribal atmospheres with archetypal animals and monstrous creatures embroidered with precious stones on fabrics like shantung, linen, jute, denim, and muslin. The exhibition also features African masks, skulls, and skeletons as contemporary memento mori, contrasting thanatos with vitalistic craftsmanship. The catalog, published by Sfera Srl – Must Edizioni, includes critical texts by Lia De Venere, Massimo Guastella, Vittorio Sgarbi, and Claudia Branca, with philological apparatus by researchers Alessia Brescia, Erika Presicce, and Cristina Sergi from the University of Salento.