Ruben Montini. IO SEGNO

The open denunciation of discrimination mechanisms that characterizes contemporary society is the soul of Ruben Montini's research (Oristano, 1986). Since the beginning of his career the artist, a performer with an academic painting background, is committed to tearing apart the veil of silence on homotransphobic opinions, attitudes and politicies. Ruben uses his own body as a radical political instrument and employs it in (often extreme) performative actions, such as the one of tattooing “FROCIO” (faggot) on his left leg and then continuing to permanently decorate his own skin over time with homophobic insults. The sap from which he draws his disruptive strength is exactly the art-life coincidence in his approach, in which two equally strong components merge: on one hand, the denunciation of the violence generated by prejudice through actions in which his body becomes a vivid catalyst of suffering, on the other hand a tender sensitive vein that detects the emotional repercussions of social brutality.

In the exhibition IO SEGNO Ruben Montini invites the public for the first time in the intimacy of his mental laboratory where his performative ideas take on a visible structural hypothesis on paper, awaiting to become actions. In this valuable collection of project drawings that traces his own personal and creative journey inserting it in the wider context of social actuality, we can identify the fundamental traits of his poetics in embryo, such as the importance of the written word, the influence of christological iconography and the attitude to incorporate the events that are the object of his reflection. Besides the succession of these intensely autobiographical sheets, the exhibitions offers further variations of the drawing through a refined selection of pictorial and sculptural objects and the new video "Le mura del manicomio" (The walls of the asylum), composed of a sequence of scenes in which the artist's action is completed by a mural drawing executed in real time by his assistant Mattia Ozzy B.

Una sera che piove 2023-2024, embroidery and sewing on wood and silk organza, various fabrics, metal chain, screws, 65x30x100 cm

AGGITTORIU 2022-2024, Drawings on paper, fabrics and nails on wood, leather, markers, liquid lead and spray paint on glass, 130x170x10 cm

Io sono un orfano 2023, ink and markers on paper, 42x29,7 cm

Il mio cuore sarà sempre con voi 2024, sardinian brocade, silk organza, cotton, synthetic fabrics, sewn on wood; metal threads, brass,
160 x 60 x 30 cm and Sketch for “Il mio cuore sarà sempre con voi” 2022, ink and pencils on paper, 42x29,7 cm

Vorrei che questo fosse una canzone d'amore 2021-2024, embroidery on fabric, Sardinian brocade, jeans, metallic threads. Acrylic and markers on plexiglass, 72x72x4 cm