Archetyps

For the new exhibition at the Nuvole Arte Contemporanea gallery, curator Marika Vicari guides us through an unusual exploration that speaks to both emotion and language.
*Archetipi* (Archetypes)—the title of the exhibition by young Neapolitan artist Ruben—offers a sensory and symbolic mapping of the abyss we call human relationships. Colors, substances, and living materials, brought together through complex artistic processes, animate installations composed of fragments of a symbolic anatomy—tongues, spines, ears, and eyes. Each object, crafted by the artist from often contrasting materials, is presented through unexpected juxtapositions. The goal is not to intellectually grasp the unforeseen connections between things, but to begin to *feel* them—as with the corridor of spines, a physical representation of boundaries and human relationships, embodying the tension between the need for protection and the constant wounds inflicted or endured. Approaching the work requires one to calibrate one’s steps, accepting the risk of contact and the ongoing experience of the limits defining our connection to the other. In this context, the tongue can caress or cut, while the ear becomes, for the artist, a metaphor for an awakened consciousness.
Thus, within the exhibition space, every paradigm serves as an entry in a unique dictionary penned by Ruben—a lexicon where the absurd becomes familiar, for, as the artist himself reminds us, there is nothing more bizarre or thorny than the precious encounter between human beings.