The brainchild of Italian art editor Ingrid Melano started as a university project for a course titled ‘The Art Markets’. Like most humble begins in the digital age, The Art Markets cultural association started as a blog about contemporary art, filled with reviews of exhibitions Melano had come across through her travels. Now in its six year, the project continues its bimonthly cycle of events, inviting artists to present a new work accompanied by a DJ set at The Art Markets space in Milan. For one of its spring editions, the art project had invited Milanese artist Lucia Leuci to show her latest exhibition, Rose’s portrait.
The solo exhibition is introduced with a short text describing textually the girl that we are to see visually represented in the exhibition: “She is a romantic girl,” it begins, “in fact, one morning while soaking a biscuit in her cappuccino, she felt touched.” Painting the picture of a girl with a white iPhone, racially sensitive emoticons, and tight Lycra clothing, Rose is just contradictory enough to be convincing. “Rose is Rose,” the text ends, and the exhibition, showing the supposed Rose’s long braid held together with a flower-patterned scrunchie and the “pretty tits” she gets lost drawing, picks up where the text left off.
