On 7 October 2005 Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea will present a solo show by Andrea Salvino entitled “Antagonista”.

The exhibition will feature paintings and drawings, most specially made for the occasion, belonging to one of the most complex and controversial areas of work of the artist, the series – started in 1997 – of portraits of “antagonistic social subjects”, men and women “against” who violently, desperately resist standardization. Demonstrators who hide their identity under a motorcycle helmet, face veiled by a kefiah, “white overalls”, Chechen militants, the impenitent Nadia Desdemona Lioce, illegal aliens and anarchists, criminal low-lifes and extremists: “problematic” subjects whose visage bears the signs of non-adaptation, non-acceptance, seen against a white background that makes them absolute images of distress, like a paradigm and symbol of contemporary differences.

The exhibition is accompanied by a publication, with text by Cristiana Perrella, not just a catalogue but a true artist’s book narrating the world of Andrea Salvino. The reproductions of his portraits alternate with a repertoire of other images collected by the artist over the years as a background and reference for his painting. Photographs from crime reporting, shots documenting acts of urban guerilla warfare, where images of the past mingle with current events and stills from 1960s and 1970s art cinema, generating a sophisticated, personal filmography of uneasiness. An anarchic book of mental and iconographic itineraries that elude any facile categorization, an album without words, in which the painting does the talking.