In his current exhibition „A Twitter at the Palisades“, the Düsseldorf based artist Lorenzo Pompa brings together his recent works, all created for this stage. The title, as is often with Pompa, has a double meaning which gives rise in our mind to an image at the margin of the unknown, that vast space which we can never dominate.

For Pompa, exhibitions are always installations conceived as a sculpture that allows for a sort of survey as one navigates the space. He is not a storyteller nor does he presume to explain the art to us. Rather, he encourages an emotional response, an elemental reaction. 

As an artist of Italian origin, one suspects that cinema neoverismo has been an inspiration for Pompa. One could identify neoverismo as a fearless examination of the human condition, be it frightening, or melancholic, brutish or destructive. We look to allegory to make all this bearable. One is reminded of Pasolini’s Medea which frames the tension between profane life and a more mythological view.This human expression in the more rudimentary biomorphic forms found in Pompa’s paintings rage at us. Gathered in a group around a prostrate man, as in the painting ‚Colored Multitude‘, the ‟figures“ reveal their intention via details, attributes and openings. These figures are reduced to elemental emotional expressions such as fear or satisfaction tapping human psychology itself.

Pompa’s language is very contemporary but also human which is timeless. One inevitably is reminded of Philip Guston’s figurative painting from the 1960’s and 1970’s. But, perhaps, there is also a link to Giotto, the separation of 600 years is not withstanding.

Lorenzo Pompa (b.1962) grew up in Rome where he first studied interior design and architecture.
After moving to Germany, he studied sculpture at the Düsseldorf Academy under Georg Herold, from 1996 to 2003.
He lives and works in Düsseldorf