[…] If we look at de Marco’s art in perspective, we realize that the dynamic that sees him fluctuating between the abstract – like the impossibility of seeing the world, much less representing it – and the figurative is part of what drives his research. Moreover, we can also observe how western pictorial tradition is an inexhaustible resource for the artist that he can draw on for going beyond the problematic silence of images, by ever more fervently grappling with the patterns of tradition within the narrow confines of pictorial language.

This happened for the first time in 2007, on the occasion of the exhibition at the PAC of Ferrara dedicated to the cycle of 15^th century frescoes in the Salone dei Mesi in the Schifanoia Palace; then, with Portrait of a Collection, an exhibition held at the Estorick Collection in London in 2009 (Fig. 5). For this, de Marco created a group of works in dialogue with works of Italian artists of the first half of the 20^th century which eventually formed one of the key tools for the research developed in the two major projects devoted to the landscape experience in our contemporary era: the exhibition Vedute, presented at the Maramotti Collection in 2010,⁶ and Stella, a book and exhibition, hosted at the Galleria nazionale d’arte moderna in Rome as well as being shown in Amsterdam and Berlin in 2013 and 2014

[…] Whithin this framework, showing the works in museums [in 2017] in proximity to the “originals” reflects a very specific choice. The promotion of live enjoyment – which on the one hand draws attention to the issues of looking and on the other, has the power to emphasize the physical and specific characteristics of the medium, precisely that which is lost along the way with digital viewing – goes hand-in-hand with the bet made by the artist in relating himself to the models.

Maria Luisa Pacelli

(from “Sui generi”, in the catalogue of the show “Flavio de Marco.Sui generi” at Galleria Sabauda in Turin, Galleria Estense in Modena and Galleria Corsini in Rome, 2017)