Event: Federico Solmi's "Chinese Democracy and the Last Day on Earth" @ Gleichapel (March 25 - 28, 2015 Paris)

's (b. 1973, Bologna) masterpiece Chinese Democracy and the Last Day on Earth will be shown for the first time in France by Parisian gallery

(located on 15 rue Debelleyme,  75003, Paris). Below is the full press release.

"Gleichapel is pleased to announce the first screening in France of Chinese Democracy and the Last Day on Earth (2012-2014), a video trilogy by New York based Italian artist Federico Solmi.

Chinese Democracy and the Last Day on Earth will be the first edition of a video cycle on drawings in motion, curated by Jeff Gleich and Tristan van der Stegen. It will be exhibited during the Drawing Now Art Fair in Paris (held at the Carreau du Temple, only a few blocks away). A selection of works on paper by Federico Solmi will also be presented and available for sale in support of Gleichapel’s platform.

Solmi's video trilogy Chinese Democracy and the Last Day on Earth took three years to complete. The video comprises of three installments : A Song of Tyranny (5:52 min), Chinese Democracy and the Last Day on Earth (10:09 min) and The Return of the Prodigal Son (7:34 min). The series  was produced  thanks to the support of the Guggenheim Foundation of New York. Federico Solmi was awarded with the prestigious John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Fellowship for Video (2009).

Through an articulate process in which 3D gaming technology and hand-painting merge into an organic whole, this 23 minute masterful trilogy brings to life the extreme prospects of Realpolitik (2), suggesting that financial and military power take precedence over ideology. Adding to this paradigm, political manipulation is carried out using propaganda and mass media, in a showcase of what Walter Lippmann once described as "manufacturing consent"(1).

Federico Solmi thus presents a dystopian vision of society functioning as a normative system doomed to recurring self-destruction: a world devoid of any moral high ground whereby, following Nietzsche’s prophecy, God dies with the collapse of traditional religion and metaphysics.

The trilogy will be screened at Gleichapel,

. The artist's works on paper will be presented each day after the screening of his video or by appointment."

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Submitted by Matteo Bittanti via Gleichapel