First published 2022
Lawrence Weschler examines the provocative digital artworks of Federico Solmi, a Bologna-born artist who relocated to Brooklyn in 1999. Weschler traces how Solmi transforms video game design tools into vehicles for blistering social critique. The artist populates virtual worlds with historical and contemporary political figures, rendering them through garish colors and satirical animation that exposes Western society's power obsessions. Weschler documents Solmi's hybrid methodology, which fuses traditional painting and drawing with cutting-edge digital technologies. The book centers on a detailed analysis of The Bathhouse, Solmi's 2020 video-painting that exemplifies his carnivalesque approach to reimagining celebrated historical moments. Weschler shows how Solmi's self-taught perspective as a cultural outsider enables him to question American mythologies and nationalist narratives. The artist paints every digital texture by hand, scanning each element multiple times to achieve his signature flickering effects. Weschler reveals how Solmi draws visual inspiration from Italian masters like Paolo Uccello and Giorgio de Chirico while channeling the political insights of Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky into works that merge dark humor with grotesque imagery to indict contemporary reality.
Genres: art, 21st-century, art-history
Vibes: dark, satirical, thought-provoking
Tropes: cultural-outsider, social-commentary
Setting: Bologna, Brooklyn
Period: 2020
112 pages · Hardcover · Black Dog Press