Rome is preparing to host the second solo exhibition of Rudy Cremonini, a Bologna artist born in 1981, at Francesca Antonini Arte Contemporanea. The exhibition, titled Epiphany or the Time of a Cigarette, will open to the public on Oct. 16, 2025 at 6 p.m. and will remain on view until Dec. 23 of the same year. The exhibition follows a period of intense research by the artist, fueled by a recent trip to the East, particularly China, an experience that profoundly influenced the new body of work presented.
The trip allowed Cremonini to confront a culture in which the sacred dimension permeates daily life and religion, sometimes manifesting itself in moments of true epiphany. This tension toward transcendent experience, combining immediate revelation and perception of ordinary time, is central to the artist’s aesthetic reflection. The works in the exhibition explore the relationship between vision and representation of time, oscillating between the instantaneous and the everyday, as suggested by the very title of the exhibition, in which the temporal measure of a cigarette becomes a symbol of the simultaneous banality and intensity of human experience. Cremonini’s painting moves along the border between figuration and abstraction, returning to the viewer a dense and ambiguous visual experience. Recurring elements of his imagery, such as portions of domestic interiors and liminal spaces, now appear immersed in meditative and ritual atmospheres.
An emblematic example is The Time of a Cigarette, which depicts an empty deckchair. The work strips the simple real datum of its immediacy, opening up to multiple interpretations, between silence, waiting and temporal suspension. The Incarnation series, consisting of a few red works, focuses on the pictorial reproduction of small oriental votive statuettes. These objects, observable in some museum display cases, are reworked by Cremonini so that they slowly appear to the eye of the viewer, a process that elevates the pictorial medium itself to an instrument of sacredness. The attention to detail, choice of colors and composition of the works create a continuity between the object represented and the spiritual dimension evoked by the painting, transforming the canvas into a space for reflection and contemplation.
Rudy Cremonini’s artistic production is characterized by major international exhibitions and solo shows. Recent ones include Four Minutes After Sunset at Capsule Shanghai in 2024 and Oh My Sweet KU at 104 Galerie in Tokyo in 2023, as well as Whispered at Galerie Thomas Fuchs in Germany in the same year. His collaboration with Francesca Antonini Arte Contemporanea dates back to 2022 with the solo exhibition Capriccio. Cremonini has also taken part in numerous group shows, including ENDLESS SUMMER at Magazzino del Sale in Cervia in 2025 and Per grazia ricevuta. Contemporary Visions of the Ex-voto at the Tesoro di San Gennaro in Naples, also in 2025. His career includes exhibitions in cities such as Milan, Paris, New York, Stuttgart, Rimini, Ortisei and Caserta, showing a constant ability to move between different cultural contexts and to propose a recognizable but always evolving visual language.
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| Rudy Cremonini on display in Rome with "Epiphany or the Time of a Cigarette" |
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