From 2/26 to 4/30/2023
fON Art Gallery - Four Points by Sheraton Catania
It's all my fault
From an idea by Ryan Mendoza e Ornella Leneri
Curated by Gianluca Collica
At the Four Points by Sheraton Catania, the world’s first extension of a hotel room into an artist’s meta-room. For the first time, those staying in Ryan Mendoza’s meta-room 251 will be able to take a phygital journey, “physical” in a real hotel room designed by the American author, and “digital” at the same time, because by wearing a dedicated viewer on site, they will be able to move in VR right in the room where Mendoza completed his artist residency in 2021. The user will thus be able, within those walls, to witness the making of Ryan Mendoza’s new photographic cycle entitled “it’s all my fault”, on display at the fOn Art Gallery. The exhibition of Ryan Mendoza’s new photographic cycle is the result of the artist’s residency at the Four Points by Sheraton Catania. Eighteen unpublished photographs in the fOn Art Gallery until April 30, 2023. A project that documents a fragile, doubtful Ryan Mendoza, fearful of a world incapable of protecting the good it welcomes.
During his commuter residence in the hotel, between demolitions, signs, visions, model performances and suggestions, Mendoza produced a series of site-specific works that were part of the exhibition “It’s all my fault”. On one wall of the room, a shot entitled “Bed of roses” is immediately revealed to the guest, while the wallpaper pattern is a graphic reproduction of a painting by the artist. The guest, once he has put on the visor that he finds in the room, becomes a sort of voyeur in the act of spying on the artist during the photo shoot, immersing himself in a surreal environment. A stripped portion of wall reads the slogan: It’s all my fault”. An admission of guilt or a declaration of innocence? Hallucinatory visions of a parallel world, scenes in which “desire” manifests itself, guided by personal suggestions rather than social rules. Diving beyond the spatial grid, one returns to reality. A short circuit that teases and invites reflections on how we appear and how we intimately are, leaving the guest with disturbing questions on the founding goals of a new social ethic.
The respectably outrageous art ofMendoza
by Gianluca Collica, curator
It is difficult, however, for those who observe the works of the American artist, a naturalized Sicilian, to be satisfied with a superficial reading. Mendoza's art is a very annoying left Jeb that the boxer expertly lands on his rival's face, in general it moves between a wise and "respectably outrageous" painting, and an "amateur" photography that in the error and imperfection presents spaces for reflection that enrich our sensitive and critical imagination. Mendoza on this occasion has moved towards a photography whose composition proposes hallucinatory visions of a parallel world, scenes in which "desire" is manifested, guided by personal values rather than by social rules. It seems to tell of extras, of souls condemned to live in a world suspended between the illusory spatiality of the metaverse and the physicality of their own natural passions, today, however, increasingly mortified by a life that exhausts every possible and intimate reflection, in favor of the collective and impersonal rites so in vogue. Yet in front of a bright color scheme and provocative poses, the explicit and pornographic representation remains far from the intentions of the artist who looks as if he were on this side of a screen that protects and exonerates him. The discreet presence of “Minecraft” recalls the staging of the imagination of a child who proceeds between childish innocence and the fantasies of a journey towards a disturbing unknown full of surprises.
