Ernest Pignon-Ernest's 'Extases' at Purgatorio ad Arco in Naples

French artist Ernest Pignon-Ernest (born 1942 in Nice) returns to Naples with 'Extases,' an exhibition curated by Carla Travierso at the museum complex of Santa Maria delle Anime del Purgatorio ad Arco. The show features eight Christian mystics—Angèle de Foligno, Catherine de Sienne, Marie-Madeleine, Marie de l'Incarnation, Louise du Néant, Hildegarde de Bingen, Thérèse d'Avila, and Madame Guyon—exploring the relationship between soul and body, interiority and exteriority in the church's hypogeum. Each life-size drawing depicts the figures at the peak of mystical experience, with their reflections in water mirrors. Pignon-Ernest has long been inspired by Naples, citing Luca Giordano, Caravaggio, and Giuseppe Sanmartino's Veiled Christ. In 1988, he secretly pasted street art works around the historic center, starting with a version of Caravaggio's 'David with the Head of Goliath' that replaced Goliath's head with that of Pier Paolo Pasolini. In 2015, he created serigraphs of Pasolini as Michelangelo's Pietà, installed in Scampia and via Benedetto Croce, where Pasolini filmed a scene from 'The Decameron' (1971). The exhibition is organized by Ciro Costabile, coordinated by Francesca Amirante, and produced by the association La musa partenopea.