Il sole come un gatto

“il sole come un gatto” is the first institutional exhibition in Naples by Diego Perrone (Asti, 1970). For this occasion, the artist has conceived a site-specific project of new productions for the first-floor halls of Palazzo Caracciolo d’Avellino. The exhibition spans various languages and media, moving freely within the motifs and formal repertoires of Perrone’s practice, which now spans over twenty years.

From moving images to environmental and sound installations, from photography to sculpture, the works on display deliver an ideal and synesthetic landscape that seems to capture the portrait of a fleeting moment.

A cat falling from a height into a courtyard adjusts its body mid-air; its paws tucked in, ready to cushion the final thud. The curious and necessary choreography of its body is decompressed in a slow-motion video that gives the exhibition its title. The subject, a cat, concentrates a symbolic stratification that spans eras and cultures: from the sacredness of ancient Egypt to the contemporary proliferation of social media reels. Here, it is an animot – an alien and feline creature, both mundane and cosmic, which in its nakedness seems to become a reflection and mirroring of alterity, or perhaps a self-portrait of the artist. It is a glimpse into the strangeness between the self and the world which, in a mortal encounter-clash, generates a poetic – dull and pathetic—of moving absurdity.

Diego Perrone’s works resemble Perelà, the “man of smoke” fueled by the incessant narration of reality, who descends from the chimney and enters the world with his light essence. As in “Pendio piovoso frusta la lingua” (2026), a reiteration of a 2010 sculpture, this silky sculptural body extends majestically like a peacock offended by captivity, monstrous and animalistic, sketching an unfathomable landscape. The Code of Perelà is the chosen (and forgotten) novel of the Futurist movement: the panegyric of technique dissolves into an invisible figure. The image, overtaking thought in speed, whips the tongue.

To the question “What is poetry?” Derrida chooses the image of the hedgehog, “an animal thrown onto the road, absolute, solitary, curled up on itself.” A gesture performed – the poetic one – renouncing culture without losing it, “crossing the road” with a “learned ignorance.” The poetic attempt crosses the path of grand discourses, risking being crushed by them. “It is that pre-verbal entity that, while claiming the word, simultaneously resists it.” “il sole come un gatto” by Diego Perrone is a crossing beneath a sun that is not metaphysical or absolute, but animalistic, mute, and unfathomable, enigmatically condensing – with both tenderness and ferocity- space and time into poetry.

The exhibition embraces the theme of the proliferation of images in the digital age, which lies at the heart of the third edition of the EDI Global Forum. Perrone’s approach is based on the creation of poetic landscapes through a transversal and eclectic language, where word and image transform seamlessly into sculpture, video, or photography. His poetics traverse the animal, rural, and folk worlds – ranging from Italian art-historical and peasant traditions to cult icons of pop culture – generating a post-folk gaze on the ruins of tradition and our digital present.

L’esposizione accoglie il tema della proliferazione delle immagini nell’era digitale, al centro della terza edizione di EDI Global Forum. L’approccio di Perrone si basa sulla creazione di paesaggi poetici con linguaggio trasversale ed eclettico, dove parola e immagine si trasformano senza soluzione di continuità in scultura, video o fotografia. La sua poetica attraversa il mondo animale, rurale e popolare, dalla tradizione storico artistica e contadina italiana a icone cult della cultura pop, generando uno sguardo post-folk sulle rovine della tradizione e sul presente digitale.

Born in Asti in 1970, Diego Perrone lives and works in Milan, establishing himself as one of the most original voices on the contemporary art scene. His research, expressed primarily through sculpture and drawing, focuses on the creation of suspended mental landscapes, ambiguous territories that challenge the distinction between the real and the imaginary. His exhibition history boasts important institutional milestones in Italy, including the recent solo show at MACRO in Rome (2022-23), exhibitions at the Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Massimo (2019), Museion in Bolzano (2013) and MAMbo in Bologna (2007). Abroad, his work has been featured in prominent spaces such as CAPC in Bordeaux and Bullseye Projects in Portland. Perrone has further consolidated his international presence by participating in prestigious group appointments, from the Venice Biennales (in the 2003 and 2013 editions) to the Berlin Biennial (2006) and Manifesta (2000). His works have been welcomed in some of the most iconic institutions in the world, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Guggenheim and the New Museum in New York, the Whitechapel Gallery in London and Castello di Rivoli, attesting to the ability of his language to engage with the major contexts of global artistic research.

Project co-funded by FSC 2021-2027 resources, DGR 616 2024. Strategic Plan for Culture and Tourism 2024/2025 – EDI 2025 Contemporary Art Exhibitions Global Forum Project.