Rise and Shine brings together eleven artists from Italy and Turkey, and gives so an insight in the various technical, aesthetical and conceptual strategies at Gallery Russo. Besides solo shows, the gallery always organizes group shows during the year, in which a selection of its represented artists exhibit their latest works. In this sense, these shows give the audience a chance to understand the character of Gallery Russo by presenting the current state of the oeuvres of its artists. In a way, these group shows can also be understood as a teaser of the future solo shows of its artists. Besides this, artists that recently have joined the gallery get introduced to the art scene through these exhibitions. Just like in this case, where Marco Veronese and Emre Yusufi are firstly presented as artists of Gallery Russo.

In the tradition of group shows at Russo, Rise and Shine is outstanding because for the first time fully digitally produced works are exhibited. Veronese and Yusufi both present pieces that refer to the field of digital collage and photo manipulation. So, besides the classic disciplines, Gallery Russo adds now new dimensions to its operations by entering the path of digital art and culture.

Rise and Shine has no actual conceptual framework. It does not follow a predesigned or predetermined exhibition idea, as it aims at giving the audience a chance to discover the gallery as aesthetic kaleidoscope where various artists, styles, voices and strategies form the gallery idea of Russo. Still, there are some connections regarding the concepts and approaches that can be noticed among the artists. These parallels result from the coherent and stringent being of the gallery, which is obviously shaped according to the vision of its owner. Here, figurative works, in which a balance between form and content, craft and art as well as aesthetic beauty and narrative meaning are dominant. In this sense, it seems that Russo, which opened its first gallery 1898 in Rome, draws connections to the great Italian tradition of figurative painting. Nevertheless, besides its rich history, the gallery dedicates its spaces to new promising talents that cohabit with painters by now established within the historical 20th Century of which, according to a family tradition, it continues to organize group and personal exhibitions.

In Rise and Shine, various reviews of reality and dealing with realism can be discovered. Sometimes, like in the works of Angelo Bucarelli, a poetic and philosophical analysis of reality is given. Here, in photo collages, the artist reveals the multidimensionality of our world. Thomas Ottieri, reflects on the urban texture of mega cities, whereas Massimo Giannoni creates beautiful paintings of libraries. Both artists understand space as architectural and philosophical matter. Enrico Benetta deconstructs our world of words by creating typography based pieces that oppose any one-dimensional form of meaning. Diego Cerero Molina and Roberta Coni show strong comments on the art of portraits, where the depicted persons seem to be stuck in a limbo between creation and destruction. Also in Manuel Felisi’s pieces, the human body and its movements play important roles, while he takes the spectator on a journey between dream and reality. Ilir Zefi and Hale Karaçelik show paintings that draw relations to the school of abstract expressionism. In the end Marco Veronese and Emre Yusufi show digitally created prints, which are based on the art of collage. Whereas Veronese’s pieces refer to the interconnection between history and present on a rather poetic and cyber-spiritual way, Yusufi refers directly to the given disastrous state of our world.

To create awareness in this world where all the world has become increasingly armed more and more, wars has quite increased, no love of human for human has remained, compassion is exhausted, cruelty become normalised, animals are also affected from this chaos. If humanity arms for a handful of soil, animals in tables of Yusufi do the same in a more “humanistic” way and becomes armed.

In the end, Rise and Shine is a reflection of our strange world, and its weird art scene, as well as the presentation of the artistic stand that Gallery Russo takes today. As reality has burst into uncountable bits, there are no absolute rules of how life has to be. That is why we live in a world of chaos, heterogeneity, and uncertainty. Nevertheless, Rise and Shine is a rather optimistic comment on this pluralist world view, as it celebrates differences and pluralism instead of forcing the multidimensional character of our world into models of unity and linearity.

Text by Marcus Graf