Filippo Leonardi

Born in Catania in 1970. Lives in Catania and Turin

Filippo Leonardi employs various materials, often extrapolated from their original context, to create works that interact with the history of places, with people, with the surrounding space. One of the recurring themes with which he deals is the relationship between art and nature. The use of botanical elements such as cacti, succulent plants, sweet potatoes, and the Rose of Jericho is symptomatic of an aim that is not only aesthetic, but also-and especially-ethical. His most recent installations develop the contradictions inherent in the social fabric, associating objects and materials that recall everyday life while at the same presenting its more disquieting aspects. Fashion, advertising, and pornography become both signifiers (in the guise of newspaper clippings) and the signified, with allusion to the major and minor perversions found in every aspect of public and private reality. (A.T.)