TESFAYE URGESSA. OLTRE

The catalogue of the exhibition devoted to Tesfaye Urgessa at the Uffizi. Ethiopian by birth, he has been working and exhibiting in Germany for the last ten years. From Addis Ababa to Stuttgart to Florence, this young artist’s unusual path has attracted the attention of critics and qualified observers, including the Director of the Uffizi, Eike Schmidt. His painting, of great chromatic intensity, originally nourished by the experience of Egon Schiele, Francis Bacon and Lucian Freud, conveys extreme lucidity in the analysis of the subject, research into the expressiveness of the body and a declared awareness of the social and political context. If his style is purely contemporary, there are traces of a relationship with tradition (Caravaggio has been mentioned) that for some time now has no longer been reverential, but a critical growth, even on the part of what until yesterday was prudently referred to as “non-Western painting.” Urgessa’s personality emerges strongly in the exhibition and in the pages of this catalogue, giving us the discovery of a vital, communicative, courageous artistic experience, in which the subjects portrayed not infrequently direct their gaze toward the observer. A few more than thirty works are on display, but for some of them a photographic sequence is proposed here that testifies to their genesis, starting from the first sketch: a “step-by-step” that ideally accompanies the artist in his creative path, as impetuous as it is rich in rethinkings and contrasts. The introductory section contains brief essays by curators Eike Schmidt and Chiara Toti, critic Katrin Burtschelle and gallerist Marko Schacher, accompanied by a number of photographs of Tesfaye Urgessa at work in his studio.

Edited by: Eike Schmidt, Chiara Toti, Marko Schacher, Katrin Burtschell