Transumanze, Alberto Ruce's solo exhibition in Paris

TRANSUMANZE, THE EXHIBITION

The genesis of Alberto Ruce's Transumanze series is research into micro-migration, the depopulation of small rural villages, the abandonment of ancestral traditions and the fragile bond between man and nature. This series was nourished by the creation of a traveling art project, "Transumanze Project", as well as anthropological research, artistic residencies, paintings, public art interventions and video interviews, which later gave life to the documentary "Perché sei qui" (Why are you here) directed by Carla Costanza.

The places that inspired the Transumanze series are small, marginal realities: ancient villages, isolated, run-down neighborhoods, abandoned countryside, ghost towns - realities that can be found all over the world, like Sicily, where Alberto Ruce lived until he was 19.

The aim of this exhibition is to tell the story of this artist's journey, physically and artistically, through villages and countryside, into a reality forgotten by our society. He is a man who watches this world disappear, both fascinated and shocked.

It's the view of a city-dweller, originally from a small village, who has moved to Europe's major cities. Returning for a time to his native land, he becomes fascinated by the subject and discovers in his immediate vicinity a once prosperous world that is dying out, ancestral methods forgotten, ancient customs gone, places and people abandoned to their fate. Whole swathes of tradition are fading away, the memory of age-old gestures and their symbolic meanings, or that of practices such as cheese-making, chair mulching... disappearing, to the benefit of standardized big-city life.

His portraits of craftsmen, traditional fishermen, shepherds, grazing animals looking down on us, his depictions of artisanal methods, are always the fruit of encounters with the men and women who still hold these skills. Through his works - painting, drawing or photography - it is an ancestral world, complex and simple at the same time, that disappears before the artist's eyes, a world he seems only to be discovering and yet which already seems to have vanished.

"From wall to canvas" is the subtitle of this exhibition: most of the works in the series take the artist's later wall paintings as references, creating a series of works that are transported "from wall to canvas", changing their destination from ephemeral to perennial. Works intended for public viewing become intimate. The artist's desire is to keep a trace of his own evolution.

TRANSUMANZE, THE PROJECT

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Transumanze is a traveling video, pictorial and artistic project, begun in March 2019, in Sicily. Still active, it was created by street artist Alberto Ruce in collaboration with graphic and video artist Carla Costanza.

In 2019, during the project, the artists carried out research on the territory to choose their places of intervention, seeking out almost lost, marginal realities in Sicily, mostly small abandoned market towns or depopulated villages. For each of the 10 stages, they worked closely with local associations who supported the project and helped them to develop mediation with local residents. Exchanges with local residents helped the artists to discover local customs and traditions; by telling their stories and addressing the problems of the places they live, they enriched the research and the project.

Each stage brings a mural to life, paying particular attention to creating a link between the work and its host territory. Most of the images used to create the murals and other works are taken from video sequences by Carla Costanza. As an imprint of her experience, she produced "Perché sei qui" (Why are you here), an intimate documentary about the video artist's relationship with this territory, nourished by her interviews with local residents.

The Transumanze project as a whole is a tribute to the people, the history and the issues facing the region. The themes addressed by the project do not only concern the native land of the two artists, both Sicilians, but also many other territories, elsewhere. The Transumanze project aims to continue its journey by exploring and highlighting similar realities around the world.

THE ARTIST

Alberto Ruce was born in Sicily in 1988. A painter, he works both in the urban environment and in his studio.
At the age of 13, he began experimenting with spray paint and tagging, and became familiar with the world of graffiti. He began his artistic career completely self-taught, a path made up of observations and confrontations with other graffiti artists.

In 2009, he moved to Paris for five years. This period gave him the opportunity to meet a number of artists and take part in various events, including national and international festivals.
From 2011 to 2014, he studied drawing, painting and perspective at the Atelier des Beaux-Arts de Paris.
Alberto Ruce currently lives in Marseille, where he has set up his studio. Here, he works on a variety of artistic projects that enable him to forge links between France and Italy.

Alberto Ruce's pictorial universe is poetic, dreamlike and delicate. His pictorial research focuses on transparency and tone-on-tone. The themes he tackles are often linked to sensory perception, to the ties that bind Man and Nature.
The evanescence of his subjects is what characterizes his work. His paint blends into the supports on which it is applied (old wood, cardboard, stone, canvas, etc.). In the street, he plays with the hues and roughness of walls, paying particular attention to the context and history of the places he visits.