Mastrovito concludes his two-month summer residency at the Analix Forever Gallery with a solo show that partially echoes his previous solo show in May at Biagiotti Progetto Arte, Wild Beast Caged, eliminating the “picture frame” and developing the work directly on the walls and in the space. The white and gold (which Mastrovito would later use in some collages and especially in the apse windows of the church of St. John XXIII in Bergamo and for the windows of the four side arms of the Cross of the Tower of Jesus at the Sagrada Familia) were inspired by some frescoes by Giambattista Tiepolo at the Galleria degli Ospiti in Udine (the gallery owner's homeland, Luigi Polla), in particular the scenes of the struggle between Jacob and the Angel and the reconciliation between Jacob himself and Esau.
Mastrovito also takes up Tiepolo's biblical setting: the large cut-out paper curtain that introduces the exhibition is actually a sort of Garden of Eden in which, among the vegetation, all sorts of animals can be recognized, nymphs handling Sepultura CDs, and a sorrowful Adam and Eve, driven out by the Angel. Passing through the opening of the tent, we enter a world based on the stories of the Old Testament, the Gospels, and the narration of the lives of the Saints, all treated with the contemptuous irony that characterizes the early Mastrovito, not yet thirty years old.
On the left wall, you can see Cain (Mastrovito himself) killing Abel (his assistant at the time, the famous cartoonist Daw) with a paper ball. The back wall features the scene of the crucifixion in the background, while the figure of Judas dominates, wearing a Judas Priest jacket, hanged from a black tree with toilet paper from the gallery bathroom: Mastrovito made it unusable for the entire month and a half of the exhibition so as not to compromise the installation.
On the right wall, some insolent children martyr St. Sebastian - leaning against the central column of the gallery - with paper airplanes instead of arrows.