Enzo Esposito - Senza Titolo

Enzo Esposito was born in Benevento in 1946.
After studying at the Academy of Naples, his interests immediately turn to conceptual art. His points of reference are in particular two: on the one hand the use of white, understood as the sum and zeroing of all colors, the symbolic color of Piero Manzoni; on the other, Viennese actionism, in which the protagonist was the very body of the artists subjected to practices of real torture. But in him we find rather an evocation of the laceration, understood not as a desperate existential denunciation of modern man's illnesses, but as the overcoming of limits.
The concept of Dépense is also fundamental, meaning with this the expression of emotions and passions thrust to the loss of self, to the point of ecstasy. That's what Esposito thinks about, talking about overcoming limits.
And this, as an artist, involves the opposition to an idea of art dominated by aseptic conceptual rationalism. His paintings are built starting from an elementary sign that, replicating itself, tends to expand to invade all the surrounding space. It is no coincidence that Renato Barilli, with the never forgotten Francesca Alinovi, invites him, in 1979, to the exhibition Painting Environment. In addition, Catherine Millet wants him at Baroques 81. Renato Barilli himself puts him in the New New, a group of extraordinary importance.
In the meantime a new four-sided sign takes shape, reminiscent of a door, a passage, an overcoming of the canvas towards the bottom, an evolution of the idea of laceration to which his work refers from the beginning. To allow this sign to fully unfold, painting overflows, so much so that the painter is forced to add pieces of table to the canvas.