Giacomo Momo Gallina's review

Gerardo Di Salvatore’s works seem to be immediate and impressive, but their real meaning requests a complex and exact semiologic analysis of origins and of being.
The techniques used by this simply complex artist are usually two: the figure of speech of hyperbole and the game of Calvino mask. The first technique is the most complex one and it consists in moving the spectator away from the real meaning of the work and then, as to complete a circle, lead his last step till he reaches the beginning, the essence free of superstructures and prejudices. A clear example is constituted by the spherical and egg-shaped structures, which are often covered by blood red horns. The colour dissuades us from the structure, it causes anxiety and it tries out our courage. The colour leads us from the countless points of the horns, bringing us to the pain of deedless and of barbed wire, to the shape of the egg, having a strong and intrinsic meaning of existence.But with just one small and daring step, we then face the colour, we remove the horns, we find an egg as perfect as the human machine, we brake it and find the primordial life of a pulsing heart and, in the end, we gloat the doubts of our existence, and accept them.
One of the many definitions of “Art” is the one referred to a mirror and Gerardo Di Salvatore does not deny it with his works: he gives us the key of an introspective and noteworthy itinerary.
In the game of masks, the artist puts himself to the fore, in a static and unchangeable figure, so to avoid that the audience’s thought makes digressions blocking the understanding of the double message. Gerardo disguises himself, he dresses up as studied materials, as peacock feathers or precious stones. This way he mirrors or, to say better, he exasperates common human feelings as narcissism, avidity and wish of power. And in this contest, while we are entrapped into the artist’s intent, we would like to strip him and strip ourselves of what we feel, but on the other hand we would not like to, since we would find ourselves naked, undefended and, most of all, frail in our dignified humanity.                                                                                             Read the Biography >>