Due to the high success of press and visitors, the show by Allen Jones at Maggiore g.a.m. has been extended to May 17th.
Allen Jones returns to Italy at the Galleria d'Arte Maggiore g.a.m. for the first time after the major anthology dedicated to him by the Royal Academy in London in 2014, with a series of iconic works showcasing the career of one of the greatest representatives of Pop Art worldwide. Among the paintings on display is also the mythical photograph immortalizing Kate Moss, transformed into a sculpture by an armor, a symbol and image not only of the London exhibition but of an entire era.
A renewed connection between Allen Jones and Maggiore g.a.m., where he already exhibited some unpublished works in 1999, executed for the occasion, and in 2002 presented an overview of his production from 1966 up to that time. The history of his art spans different projects: from mannequins to sculptures, from paintings to the flat color fields of the Sixties. A constructor of moving images of Futurist descent with a chromaticism built on broad brushstrokes of Matissian descent who, with a disruptive irony, aims to dismantle the roles between man and woman-and consequently, the image of the woman as an object that exists in the eyes and minds of those who perceive her as such-to insert his art into highly relevant themes such as gender equality and relational dynamics.
A pioneer of the English pop artist generation and present since 1961 in the most important international exhibitions, inspiring directors like Stanley Kubrick, beloved by figures like Elton John who collect his work, Allen Jones is to art what Mick Jagger is to music or Vivienne Westwood is to fashion: an icon that has influenced everything from design to fashion, from popular culture to films. A constructor of fast and moving images of Futurist descent, where the physical and carnal dimension marks the forms and colors, Allen Jones is the artist-narrator of saturated colors, of a irreverent optimism, and monumental irony.
In his paintings, the characteristic features are the painted female figures that come to life from the canvas and achieve their own autonomy, presenting themselves in their three-dimensionality. Yet, there's also the inverse approach, the female body dematerializing into the color of the canvas to assume new forms, a woman liberated from any physical stereotype and capable of taking any form in the minds and imagination of the observer, as in the works on display such as 'Ovation' (2010), 'Backdrop' (2016/17), and 'Changing Room' (2016), echoing their male counterpart in sculptures like 'Man losing his head and hat' (1988) and 'Untitled (Man)' (1989).
But Allen Jones is also the artist of the dance between the sexes, merging man and woman among colors as in 'Semi Quiver' (1997) and 'Crescendo' (2003), suggesting that role-playing is a continuous pas de deux, where one wouldn't exist without the other in a sort of mass exaltation for the performance of the moment, as seen in 'Bravo!' (2017). The exhibition's protagonist is also the iconic transformation of Kate Moss into a sculpture. Regarding this, Allen Jones states: 'The metal flaked fibreglass body was made in 1974 for a film that I wanted to make. It was the story of a girl who wanted to become a fashion model. However, she discovered she had a problem, every time she stood under the spotlight she turned into a man. Her boyfriend, an artist, came to her rescue by making a suit of body armour which would enclose her and protect her identity as a woman! The film was never made and the fibreglass body remains in my studio until now. I never sold it as a sculpture because it had been conceived as a film prop. In 2013 I was invited to make an artwork of the model Kate Moss to be included in an exhibition devoted to her at Christie's in London. It seemed an impossible task to photograph a woman who had been recorded by some of the world's finest photographers. I was invited to visit her world, although she was in fact visiting mine. I remembered the body sculpture and the result was this print made in a very small edition.' And precisely in the exhibition, it is possible to view the last specimen of this edition available on the market that not only tells of an era of glamour and icons but also of women as objects that exist only in the eyes and minds of those who wish them to be so.
