Carlo De Meo's 'IL BACIO' Proposes a Kiss Between Africa and Europe

Italian artist Carlo De Meo (born 1968 in Maranola, Latina) has created 'IL BACIO,' a provocative and utopian project that envisions physically reshaping the coasts of Africa and Europe to form two lips about to kiss. The work, recently exhibited at MACRO in Rome, includes a graphic rendering and instructional text mimicking architectural proposals. De Meo describes it as an 'impossible project' that uses irony to address the serious sociopolitical issue of migration from Africa to Europe. The artist, trained at the Accademia di Belle Arti di Frosinone in the late 1980s, has a non-linear practice involving found objects and performance. His ongoing archive 'ERRARE' documents coincidences and deviations. De Meo was recently invited by the Italian embassy in Armenia for the Giornata della Lingua Italiana nel Mondo, where he created 'CANCELLATA A JEREVAN' using discarded objects. 'IL BACIO' will be presented this summer at the Memorie Urbane festival in Gaeta on a public billboard.