Porta Lavernalis

June 14, 2011 – July 18, 2011
Opening: June 11, 2011

Laverna was the Roman goddess of thieves, cheats and crooks. She had her own sanctuary in Rome on Aventine Hill, near Porta Lavernalis, the city gate named after her. Before heading out to steal, thieves would go and seek her blessings. The street that runs there today is called Via di Porta Lavernale. For his first solo exhibition at Gentili Apri, Alberto de Michele (Venice, 1980) produced a replica of the marble Via di Porta Lavernale street sign and replaced the original with the duplicate. This street sign will be displayed in the gallery spaces in honour of the goddess of the underworld and as a tribute to Roman mythology and the power of deception.

Alberto de Michele’s work straddles the line between (pulp) fiction and (plain) fact. It involves investigating romanticized notions of the culture of the outlaw by examining the world in which he himself grew up. A world that his father has never been able to leave behind. Among the works that will be shown is I Lupi (2010) a video about a group of 40-to-70 year-old thieves from the north of Italy known as ‘I Lupi’ (the Wolves). The only time they steal is when there’s a dense fog that makes everything invisible, including them. They rob houses, banks, jewellers, trucks - anything they can profit from. The video I Lupi was made in collaboration with the Wolves themselves and the artist’s father. Other works included in the exhibition are L’Orologio di Silvio Berlusconi (2010), a lightbox based upon a story from his father who once was the owner of this watch and Gratta e Vinci (2010), a photographic work of assembled scratch residue of Italian lottery cards.

The work of Alberto de Michele has been exhibited at Reina Sofia National Museum, Madrid (2010) De Appel, Amsterdam (2008) Apexart, New York (2008) amongst others. Currently he is a resident at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam.

Porta Lavernalis has the generous support of Mondriaan Foundation, Amsterdam. It will be complemented with a publication, published by Gentili Apri and the Soon Institute this late summer

Exhibition images by Andrea Rossetti

July 18th, 2011 - the screening night at Gentili Apri