Tom DiSalvo: Beyond the Nets / Art works

Title

Tom DiSalvo: Beyond the Nets / Art works

Subject

Italy -- Emigration and immigration -- Italian-American art -- United States -- Art history -- 20th century

Description

“Quando un'anima nasce in questo paese le vengono gettate delle reti per impedire che fugga. Tu mi parli di religione, lingua e nazionalità: io cercherò di fuggire da quelle reti. “
“When the soul is born… it has a slow and dark birth, more mysterious than the birth of the body. When the soul of a man is born in this country there are nets flung at it to hold it back from flight. You talk to me of nationality, language, religion. I shall try to fly by those nets.”
James Joyce’s words in “A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man” inspired the title of this exhibit for they encapsulate the character of Tom DiSalvo. The works in “Al di là delle reti / Beyond the nets” are a small representation of over 310 canvases painted throughout the artist’s career. Many of them measure 7X9 feet, a characteristic to keep in mind while appreciating the details in this virtual format. Several works interlace images and text and beg to be read aloud. Indulge them; and indulge yourself revisiting them for a unique encounter each time.
Pre-Covid I looked forward to regularly engaging with the selection of canvases displayed at Florida Atlantic Univerity's Boca Raton Campus. They invariably triggered self-reflection. I am honored to share those and others, along with oral histories, commentaries, and personal artifacts that celebrate the passion and talent of Tom DiSalvo. I hope that your own journey through these works leads you on an alluring and unremitting path.


 

Creator

Tom DiSalvo

Source

Exhibit “Al di là delle reti / Beyond the nets”

Date

1972-2001

Contributor

Domenica Diraviam, Dr. Viviana Pezzullo, Federico Tiberini, Dr. Ilaria Serra

Language

en, it, es, ja, fr, el, lat, hi,

Type

Painting

Coverage

US

Collection Items

Challenger
Challenger previously adorned the ceiling of the artist's New York apartment. It has been donated to Christa McAuliffe Middle School in Boynton Beach, Florida.

A Pax on Both Their Houses
This pair of paintings, from the Americana series, depicts the artists sentiments of Cold War Era politics.

Reflections: Reds, Whites, and the Blues
In "Reds, Whites, and the Blues" DiSalvo commemorates his visit to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC. In this painting he fills his own silhouette with names of Vietcong who perished and includes the name of two of his family members whose deaths…

Bamiyan on Broadway
ETERNAL WATERS
A WAY FROM THE CITIES
GENTLE DAYS NIGHTS
WHOSE TOWERS WILL
[…]THERE I […]
[…] SOFT[…]
AT CORPEACE I SING

Bamiyan on Broadway, Twin Towers in the background, statues and buildings.
The statues of Buddhas of Bamiyan were…

Los-Urizen
The Manhattan subway map provides the backdrop for the images of Urizen and Los. At the time this was painted Tom DiSalvo was residing in New York and developing his artistic career. The grid depicts his daily commute, but the mythological figures…

Kandyskin 0 (With Her Stripes We are Healed)
0. STRIPED
Details from the Kandyskin Chronicle Show Catalog (1992)
Two distinct images (Cicciolina, in meditative pose, and the 1934 Kandinsky painting titled "Striped") form a sandwich over and under a text that recalls the celebrated opening…

Kandyskin I (D'Hommage a Duchamp)
I. D'HOMMAGE A DUCHAMP
The image is Marcel Duchamp's 1912 painting “Nude descending a staircase No. 2”. Kandyskin's subjective feelings are those of a striptease artist-bride before the cravings of a public-groom.

(Her pin-striped birthday…

Kandyskin II (His Clemency)
II. HIS CLEMENCY
El Greco's Cardinal de Guevara and a close up of Cicciolina sandwich in a text dense with quotations. The role of Clement Greenberg as critic-champion and charismatic megaphone of American abstract expressionism is recalled, as is…

Kandyskin VI (Envy)
VI. ENVY
Every- avant-garde movement paints a mustache on the one that came before. Duchamp had bearded Mona Lisa; Leonardo returns the favor on Picasso's Les Demoiselles d'Avignon. The veiled, siren allure of the brides takes flight, dancing, at…

Kandyskin VII (Avarice)
Vll. AVARICE
Rembrandt's The Anatomy Lesson of Doctor Nicolaes Tulp frames, left to right, Andrew Carnegie, Pope Julius Il, J.P. Morgan, and a member of the Yasuda Marine Insurance Company of Japan. Driven by a craving for absolution, even stronger…
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