“Regardless of the Narrative!”
Francesco Balsamo, Martin Eder, Giovanni Iudice, Francesco Lauretta, Ryan Mendoza, Anselm Reyle, Caroline Ricca Lee, Alberto Scodro
Collica & Partners San Gregorio (CT)

“Regardless of the Narrative!”, which addresses the theme of over-narration within contemporary visual culture.
The project positions itself as a clear statement: to reaffirm the centrality of the artwork and its intrinsic narrative capacity, independently of external discursive constructions—often imposed or suggested by the dominant cultural system and, more specifically, by the art system itself.
It is increasingly evident today how the overall evaluation of an artist is influenced by parameters that extend beyond the work itself. Systemic dynamics—including the art market—tend to direct critical attention toward exogenous elements, such as the construction of a recognizable identity, adherence to specific narratives, or compliance with easily marketable communicative codes. In this context, the ability of the artwork to function as an autonomous perceptual system, capable of generating meaning and activating its own narrative dimension, is progressively marginalised.
The selection presented aims to respond to this tendency by bringing together artists who, despite the diversity of their languages - sculpture, painting and drawing - share a common orientation: shifting the focus of attention from the represented subject to the evocative power of language itself. In these practices, narrative is never an externally imposed theme; rather, it emerges as an internal possibility of the work, as the outcome of a formal and perceptual tension. This critical position is part of a broader reflection concerning the relationship between so-called peripheries—both geographical and cultural—and the major centres of the art system. Today more than ever, these centres find in the market a decisive ally, while simultaneously imposing a system of expectations and parameters (narrative slogans, identity constructions, economic indicators) that artists are increasingly expected to adopt to gain visibility and legitimacy. The consequences of such dynamics are particularly disadvantageous for those contexts and artists operating outside these logics, asserting a practice free from conditioning. A far from secondary aspect lies in the heterogeneity of the artists presented: at first glance, their individual poetics appear almost irreconcilable, as if each excluded the others. Yet, beyond their different positions within the art system, they all share the principles outlined above, giving rise to works characterised by a strong narrative potential, free from over-narrative conditioning. In this way, the viewer is granted the possibility of exercising an autonomous judgment, constructi ng a personal narrative free from pre-established frameworks and dominant interpretative devices. Therefore the artwork does not pres ent itself as a closed statement, but as an open field of experience, capable of activating multiple readings and of encouraging direct perceptual and critical engagement. It is precisely in this reappropriation of the gaze-free, unmediated, and undirected that the relationship between artwork and audience is redefined, restoring centrality to individual experience as the original site of meaning production.