Woolbridge Gallery Opens Two Shows in Biella, Including John Robinson's First Italian Solo

Woolbridge Gallery in Biella, housed in the former Pria wool mill, has inaugurated two exhibitions across its 10,000-square-meter space. The first is a group show featuring about forty international artists, including works by Schnabel, Paladino, Warhol, Vezzoli, a historic video by Michelangelo Pistoletto, and a documentary on Joseph Beuys by Gianfranco Barberi and Marco di Castri. The second is the first Italian solo exhibition of British artist John Robinson (born 1981 in Worcester), titled "Thug," presenting recent paintings mostly executed in early 2022. Robinson's work focuses on self-portraiture, but the face is obscured, hooded, masked, or filtered through various devices, reducing the visage to cutouts for eyes, nose, and mouth. The mask itself becomes a painted surface, such as folded movie posters in the "Horror Movie" series, a detail from a Courbet painting in "Courbet (Modern Hermit)," or reproductions of Baroque church ceilings in "Blake (Hermit)" and "Smiley (Hermit)." The background often carries additional narrative layers, creating a double reading of identity between two parallel discourses. The article is written by Alberto Mugnaini for Artribune.