安德烈·基耶西：无主之城 Andrea Chiesi：City of God

Looking Back at the Abyss
by Dr. Primavera Spiga

Everyone has his/her own dream city. It may be a familiar place, or constitutes of the routes one likes. Therefore, the same city in reality may present thousands of images for different people. However, there is always one city which is as remote as a dream, full of people’s prospect. Having a glace back at it, there will generate feelings of intimacy and strangeness in our deep hearts.

The cities in Andrea Chiesi’s paintings, are the ones in his eyes and particularly in his heart. When standing in front of his works, your eyes are full of dark windows, sunny yard and dilapidated buildings, and the quieter workshop around by roaring machines, aimless wanderers, as well as the tracks passed by roaming travelers……

The theme of this exhibition is the rapidly changing cities, the city landscapes are altered by human beings continuously. These changes seem like they are quietly telling some kind of black romance, reminding you that some place you were looking for might have already disappeared. Just like the hero in the futurist film which opened the new century, who has pushed some critical button resolutely and determinedly, Chiesi guides us to stop still and look back at the other side of the human history.

Chiesi depicts us a world 3000 years after the birth of Jesus Christ, filled with empty boxes dwelling by aliens and recovery of the lost memories. Chiesi leads us into the elegant frameworks and dark flowing dances with the intense and sharp white-and-black symphony. The whole world is immersed in the deep blue, as the chilly winter totally covered with ice and snow. His elaboration has broken the limit of time and space, confining the city into a far-off dimension, which, however, is so close to the unknown place in the ego world. It is another universe co-exist with the real world, where the souls could take a rest and go into the deep heart quietly. On the eve of the storm, everything gradually rises in the pure, quiet air and the dark, mysterious sky. What a dark world!

The secret to appreciate a white-and-dark photograph, may be its gray levels. While appreciating Chiesi's paintings, it’s the climax of the dark layers. You need to go through the most somber and deep in your heart to experience Chiesi’s each single line and stroke. Besides, you should untie the intensive and interlaced symbols and lines from your inner soul to prevent yourself from being trapped. As Nietzsche said in Beyond Good and Evil: “When you look long into an abyss, the abyss looks into you.”

Chiesi is just like Giovanni Battista Piranesi in the third thousand year. The lines in his paintings describe the modern social ruins in each detail, like the strings of a violin, straight, clean and full of tension; Chiesi invites us to watch the performance in a time-suspended space, where you may take a new look at the reality and your inner quietness. This quietness has given you infinite pondering space to think about ego and human beings, day and night, city and nature, reality and dream, as well as the helpless of damage and even destroy, which reflect the bright glory of the creators. At this very moment, you are looking back at the abyss along with the light lines in strong contrast and clean shadows.