October 21st – December 3rd, 2011
Opening: Friday 21st October – 7 pm
EverAfter is the title of the second solo show that Galleria Paola Verrengia dedicates to the German artist Claudia Rogge (Düsseldorf, Germania 1968).
Claudia Rogge’s artistic research is focused on the relationship between the mass and the individual. Using digital technology, she creates large photographic images of men, women and children which become symbols of a process which serializes and impersonalizes the human form.
After the show Rapport in 2006, the German artist is back in Salerno to present her new cycle of large dimension photographs entitled “EverAfter”, liberally inspired by Dante’s Divine Comedy.
At first glance these photographic works seem to create the environments of Renaissance and Mannerist art. However, looking more closely the details are disturbing and make the spectator think of the tableaux vivants shown in some of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s films.
Hell, Purgatory and Paradise become a motive for Claudia Rogge to explore the fine line which divides good from evil, with cynical allusion to vices and passions, from lust and greed to love and violence.
The recreated scenes, which formally follow the religious roots of visual art, raise contemporary issues both in form and content, in first place the role of faith in western society which is becoming more and more secular.
The promiscuous images contain a multitude of figures, beautiful and naked. A crowd lifts their arms to the heavens to praise, plead or curse, according to which circle of hell they have been assigned.
The large dimension works on show are: (Diasec 165×215 cm.): Paradise II, Purgatory IV, Inferno I e Prelude I; the smaller works are (Diasec 80×100 cm.): Paradise VII, IX e X.
Participating artist
Claudia Rogge, born in Dusseldorf in 1968, lives and works in Germany. She has shown her works in important international exhibitions: “EverAfter”, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, 2011; “The Right to Protest”, Museum on the Seam, Jerusalem (Israel), 2010; “Athens Photo Festival 2010: Claudia Rogge”, Hellenic Centre for Photography, Athens, 2010; “Das Paradies der Zaungäste”, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, 2010; “A Retrospective”, MAM Mario Mauroner Contemporary, Vienna (Austria) 2010; Moscow Contemporary Art Museum, Moscow (Russia), 2009; “Isolation”, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, 2009; Mann ohne Eigenschaften, Mario Mauroner, Vienna (Austria), 2009; Kunstdialog in gemeinsamer Bewegung, Museum of Art, Wuhan, (China), 2009; Third Beijing International Art Biennale, 2008; “Peking” Palazzo Ducale, Modena, (Italy), 2008; “Die Kunst zu sammeln”, Museum Kunst Palast, Düsseldorf (Germany), 2007; “UNIFORM”, Galerie Voss, Düsseldorf, (Germany), 2006; “RAPPORT”, Galleria Paola Verrengia, Salerno (Italy), 2006.
