Julio Larraz Solo Exhibition

Behind the curtain of dreams

Fifteen years ago I left Julio Larraz in the moon, in a special pictorial space he presented in Italy. It has been a long time for both of us and we met again here on Earth, I came down after being near the silver craters, like Astolfo, who went to recover his mind and give it back to Orlando. We went and came with the same stuff, a sheet drawn out from the streets of Naples, we certainly chose a plausible solution to an unlikely statement, however poetic. On the other hand, we spent more words musing over a painting than just looking at it, seeking the meaning of a beautiful sculpture that just listening to it. It is always useful to rationalize, to show the right way to a deliberate action that cannot, that must not escape schemata. Thus, for instance, The Curator (p. 14), configured by Larraz, appears both hieratic and faceless—the former equivalent to the latter—facing the great shunga in which the embrace probably reminds the relationship between the critique and the artist; and it is not at all easy to determine who does what. In front of the work, interrupting it, standing still on a pedestal reminiscent of an ecclesial pulpit, ready to start an anonymous, irrelevant sermon, like a lay clergyman of a religion with its rituals and mythologies.