Sembra Vivo! / Looking Alive!
Skira 2023
Italian version of the exhibition catalogue by Scriptum
Maurizio Cattelan, Ron Mueck, George Segal, Carole Feuerman and many more are the protagonists of the exhibition”LOOKING ALIVE! Hyperrealist Sculptures by the Greatest Contemporary Artists,” scheduled from May 26 to October 8, 2024 at Palazzo Bonaparte in Rome, which brings international hyperrealist sculpture to Italy, told through the most important contemporary artists.
The title, SEMBRA VIVO, is intended to evoke the awe that the exhibition intends to inspire in visitors in front of the sculptures on display, in which it is difficult to distinguish a real body from a work of art so realistic are the details, right down to the smallest detail. There are 43 mega-installations made by the greatest contemporary artists internationally, 29 in all: from Maurizio Cattelan (present with iconic works such as the pigeons of the Ghosts installation or the famous banana, better known as “Comedian”) to Ron Muech who also exhibits a gigantic Dark Place man’s head, up to George Segal, Carole Feuerman, Duane Hanson and many others.
An exhibition that aims to provoke, question, and bring together the artists who have been most controversial: what caused the hyperrealist sculptures to short-circuit the minds of visitors? We know they are not real, yet that skin, hair, beards, and fingers tell us otherwise. The naked bodies shock us, the eyes hypnotize us, and those dimensions sometimes perfectly to scale and sometimes wrong confuse us: It looks alive! Is it really?