Ralph Hall – Animal Liberation

Mostra personale

Comunicato stampa

From december 4th until 11th january, Galerie Ferrero, Nice hosts Animal Liberation by Ralph Hall, an italian-french artist who has always defended animal rights.

A long trail of cultural and emotional growth has carried Ralph Hall to this new series of sculptures that are born from a profound introspective research regarding society and its violent relationship with nature and animals.

The title of the exhibition refers to the omonimous book by Piter Singer "Animal Liberation" published in 1975, which opened a vast movement of literatura opposing vivisection and animal cruelty with both direct and indirect repercussions for society, legislation and non-violent culture. Hall wishes to accompany his public on a journey of reflection and redemption of an authentic rape of nature. A call for help, and a scream to awake the sleeping consciences to a way of lire that unknowingly generates pain.

With Blue Stinger work from 2011, the famous ceramic Christ covered in blue velvet, stabbed in the back with a steel knife, Ralph starts to observe and be observed. A sort of implosion followed by a re-birth with a second soul cleaner and truer. The artist explains that "after having stabbed Jesus in the back, man unleashes an unnatural violence against the perfect creatures created by the same God in which he blindly believes. Juice of hypocrisy". Experimenting new artistic techniques to interpret the world with an alternative language.

The exhibition, cured by Enrico Migliaccio and Ralph Hall, occupies the location with a video location, “The Last” (2012), Time goes bye (2012) printing on pvc, Blue Stinger (2011) and inedited works presented here for the first time: 13 sculptures composed of 16 pieces.

The works of art, produced in ceramic and hand-finished, are baked in special ovens at 1065 to obtain the 'biscuit effect'. After comes the velveting, a technique which consists of applying flock, fibres of a uniform length of a few mm, to obtain the effect of velvet.

During their creation, the animals are re-interpreted by the artist who feels their pain and transforms it into metaforic sculptures capable of symbolically comunicating the suffering they endure. Hall uses fishing nets, laboratory instruments, electrodes, steel cages, cords, pins, muzzles, to force the spectator to question the existence of circuses, bullfights, zoos, and vivisection but also the pain that animals experience daily.

Here velvet is sinonimous with warmth and protection, it is an element which makes a strong visual impact, as shiny as varnish. Velvet transmits a sense of softness in sharp contrast with the decisive comunicative aim of the exhibition. These are real tactile sculptures. We reflect on how sight follows the sense of touch here. Babies learn first with their hands then their eyes, in the same manner the delicate nature of the flock in all its colours wakes our inner child to help us to finally understand right from wrong.

«A harder collection - underlines Ralph Hall - because once again it has evolved, progressing with a new creative sprint that has however, kept faith to the first collection. Bitten by the hunger to know, to open myself to dialogue. I believe even more that contemporary art today should be less instinctive, not point-blank, knee-Jerk reactions but should be decanted through years of research and dialogue, reading and documentation».

[ Biography ]

Ralph Hall was born in Verona to an Italian father and French mother. He dedicates himself to technical studies, only after this entering the world of art and self-taught, deepens his knowledge in an almost vendictive way without a sense of conscience to compensate for a troubled adolescence. He frequents different artistic realities, associations and charities. Travelling widely, mainly in North Europe and California. San Antonio of Port Bay in the Balearics, Elba, Monaco all leave their mark on the artist. Protected places such as the mountain of St. Moritz in summer, and living in Saint Jean Cap Ferrat and Los Angeles. Bound to Francis Bacon, Filippo de Pisis, Giuseppe Penone and Gina Pane, Hall also finds inspiration in writers such as Flaubert, Baudelaire and Huysmann, directors of the calibre of Pasolini and Marco Bellocchio with his masterpiece 'I pugni in tasca'. Various exhibitions both collective and personal, amongst the latest: 2014 Il contemporaneo a confronto, Meridiana Gallery, Verona; in 2013 Person'Hall, Queen Gallery, Desenzano del Garda; Krudelta ment'Hall, Elio Ferraro Gallery, Milano. Ralph Hall is the artist chosen in 2012 for Spazio Edit in Milan at Vogue's Fashion Night Out. Today he lives between Nice and Verona.