26 maggio – 17 giugno 2023

Negare l’esistenza del sole is the chosen title for the solo exhibition of Gianluca Braccini, scheduled from Friday 26th May – with the opening at 6.30 pm – at the La Fonderia art gallery in Florence, Via della Fonderia 42/R.

Following the exhibition “La stagione stragista, 1993 le bombe di Firenze, Roma e Milano” held at the Galleria delle Carrozze of Palazzo Medici Riccardi, and as its ideal continuum, Braccini investigates one of the contributing causes that led to the two-year terror ’92/ ’93, presenting works concerning the island and the prison of Asinara. This is the place where Giovanni Falcone and Paolo Borsellino, together with their families, were transferred for safety and where they wrote the “Maxi-trial” in 1984, with the approximately 8,000 pages of the ordinance which remand 476 suspects to trial.

The paintings and small papers on show, executed in gum print and oil, lead to an immersion in the landscapes and places lived by the two families during their time on the island. What is highlighted is the contrast between the peace that at first sight we are used to perceiving from marine landscapes and what that place is and represents: a security prison, a historical memory, the place where it was written the turning point in the fight against the Mafia.

It is part of the history of our country to talk about the fight against organized crime. The deputy Diego Tajani, who had served as the king’s attorney general in Palermo, investigating the collusions between the mafia, law enforcement and politics, in 1875 became the protagonist of a heated debate in Parliament: “The mafia that exists in Sicily is not perilous or invincible in itself. It is dangerous and invincible because it is an instrument of local government […] Denying the existence of the mafia means denying the existence of the sun”. The exhibition’s title comes from Tajani’s speech, to underline the historicity of the debate on the Mafia in our country and that those words, made their own by history with the Maxi-trial, remain a current reality.

Painting and chalcography are Gianluca Braccini’s favorite expressive tools, which takes inspiration from historical photographic images, or landscapes, to investigate the subjects without any judgment. Among the exhibitions we recall Enduring Freedom, bi-personal at RFK International House for Human Rights in Florence (2022) and at Palazzo Pretorio in Volterra (2023), and Cambiamento è resistenza collettiva at La Portineria in Florence. He also participates in the artist residencies Cantastorie, curated by Pietro Gaglianò at the Hymmo Art Lab in Pratovecchio in 2022 and Margine at Palazzo Acciaiuoli in 2021