Nicola Samorì's Dual Exhibition at Monitor Rome

Nicola Samorì (Forlì, 1977) presents a new body of work at Monitor in Rome, diverging from his decade-long practice. The exhibition is structured around two segments: 'Manuale della mollezza' (Manual of Softness) and 'tecnica dell'eclisse' (eclipse technique). Inspired by Leonardo Cremonini's concept of oscillation 'between hard and soft, excluding the unstable state of the soft,' Samorì explores material extremes. In the first segment, the marble sculpture 'La lingua' bends to the limit of ductility, with pointed-toe feet balancing on a head, while the skin opens in gashes. Two twin high-reliefs, one in white marble and one in Belgian black marble, connect the two rooms. On a single wall, ancient works have undergone forced oxidation: the artist applied a copper leaf film and washed the surface with sulfur, leaving only a faint ghost of the original representation. Notable is 'Macello' (2021), a pair of still lifes painted on Breccia di Vendôme marble. Samorì exploited the stone's colorful stains to create a double image in positive and negative, manipulating the emerging forms and emphasizing contours to produce a pictorial illusion.