The Luigi Pecci Contemporary Art Center in Prato Presents from 26 September 2024 to Sunday, February 2, 2025, Louis Fratino. Saturathe first solo exhibition dedicated by an institution to the work of the American artist Louis Fratino (1993, Annapolis, MD). Curated by Stefano Collicelli Cagoldirector of the Pecci Center, the exhibition is part of the program
annual Tuscany in the Centerdedicated to artists who have crossed the regional territory during their career, and follows the great critical success of the artist’s work at the 2024 Art Biennale, Foreigners Everywheredirected by Adriano Pedrosa. The exhibition itinerary brings together a series of sculptures, over 30 paintings and more than 20 works graphics between drawings and lithographsgiving the opportunity to deepen the artist’s research through existing works and new production.
The word ‘satura’ harks back to the Latin term ‘Satura Lanx’, a platter filled with various first fruits meant to be offered to the Gods, from which the literary genre, characterized by a variety of styles, descends. In Italian, the word means both literally and metaphorically ‘to be full’. Both meanings, Italian and Latin, seem to recall the richness of colors, the opulence of materials and the diversity of media explored by Fratino’s art.
Satura focuses in particular on the relationship between Fratino’s research and Italy, only partly inspired by his ancestors born in Molise. The country offered the artist a wide range of themes, imagery and sensibilities, creating bridges between relationships, affections, landscapes and ultimately allowing him to reflect on his art. The works presented in the exhibition draw inspiration from twentieth-century Italian artists, such as Filippo De Pisis, Mario Mafai, Costantino Nivola, Felice Casorati, Carlo Carrà, Fausto Pirandello and Guglielmo Janni; from the immersive experience of the Italian landscape and cities such as Rome,
Milan, Genoa; from the views of the Tyrrhenian coast, where the lights of the Mediterranean and the voluptuous vegetation join with an in-depth research on the culture of the country through the reading of the poems of Sandro Penna, Patrizia Cavalli, Pier Paolo Pasolini and the writings on homosexuality of Mario Honey.
On the occasion of the opening of the exhibition, a catalogue will be published by Mousse Publishing where it will be possible to further explore the relationship between Italy and Fratino’s work, thanks to a rich iconographic apparatus and a series of critical texts on the history of art and literature and queer theories commissioned for the occasion.
Louis Fratino. Louis Fratino (b. 1993, Annapolis, MD) received his BFA in Painting with a concentration in Illustration from the Maryland Institute College of Art, Baltimore, MD (2015). He was awarded the Fulbright Fellowship in Painting, Berlin (2015-16) and the Yale Norfolk Painting Fellowship, Norfolk, CT in 2014. Fratino is currently exhibiting at the 60th International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale, Foreigners Everywherecurated by Adriano Pedrosa. His works are in the collections of the Baltimore Museum of Art, MD; Christien Sveaas Art Foundation, Oslo, Norway; The
Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, CA; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL; Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, TX; Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY; RISD Museum, Providence, RI; and Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY. Fratino lives and works in Brooklyn, NY.
Pecci Center. The Luigi Pecci Center for Contemporary Art in Prato opened in 1988, the first purpose-built contemporary art museum. Designed by architect Italo Gamberini, since 2016 it has increased its space thanks to the new wing built by architect Maurice Nio. Since 2023, the Pecci Center has had part of its collections permanently exhibited thanks to the Formafantasma project. The complex houses 3,000 square meters of exhibition space; the cinema; the outdoor arena; the library; the archive; the urban center; the bookshop; Cargo bistrot; the MYO restaurant; three educational laboratories and a playground. Over the years, the Pecci Center has organized monographic exhibitions of artists such as Robert Mapplethorpe, Gerhard Richter, Lucio Fontana, Alberto Burri, and Yves Klein. Recently, it hosted the largest institutional exhibition of Diego Marcon conceived specifically for the spaces of Gamberini, the monographic exhibition dedicated to Chiara Fumai, the exhibition of Massimo Bartolini, artist of the Italian Pavilion at the 60th Venice Art Biennale and the first Italian exhibition of Yu Ji. A program of live meetings ranging from book presentations, to Centro Pecci School and Centro Pecci Night, allow together with the exhibitions to create an inclusive and welcoming environment, to develop new ideas and present avant-garde practices.
Carlo Franza