On the occasion of the proposed theme of Books As 2023, Power, inaugurates "Campus 13/Compound 12", the exhibition of Ciriaco Campus, an artist always keenly aware of the contradictions of the contemporary world. On display in AuditoriumArte are 12 tapestries plus 1: the series of 12 large tapestries, "Compound," made in 2019, and "Doing God's Work" from 2018, the 13th tapestry that gives an additional perspective of meaning to the entire exhibition. In light of Goldman Sachs CEO's arrogant 2009 statement, "Doing God's Work, which the artist provocatively decides to weave in gold over the image of a hippo's poop photographed from above, the splendid 12 Gobelins tapestries, "Compound," on which satellite images of military encampments are woven allude more to the control mechanisms of an increasingly abstract power, a pervasive and transversal Big Brother observing unseen, often at night with infrared, from high in the skies than to the theme of military surveillance.
Ciriaco Campus born in Bitti (Nuoro), lives and works in Rome. His research focuses on the representation of social issues in the media, the world of consumption and its imagery, and the conflicting dimensions of the present. His work travels little-trodden paths that continually intersect with the common goal of understanding reality as it continually changes. He has taught sculpture at the Academies of Fine Arts in L'Aquila, Milan, Sassari, Naples and Rome. Among his most significant exhibitions held in public spaces since 2000: Galleria Comunale, Museo di Castel Sant'Angelo, Palazzo Venezia and Galleria Nazionale d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea in Rome. Royal Palace of Naples. He exhibited at the 54th Venice Biennale.
The following have written, among others: Alberto Abruzzese, Father Ernesto Balducci, Paolo Balmas, Massimo Bignardi, Lorenzo Canova, Antonio Caronia, Claudio Cerritelli, Stefano Chiodi, Mario Costa, Enrico Crispolti, Raffaele Gavarro, Simonetta Lux, Gianluca Marziani, Marco Meneguzzo, Domenico Nardone, Isabella Pezzini, Francesco Poli, Ludovico Pratesi, Leonardo Romei, Franco Speroni, Elena Tavani, Antonello Tolve, Luisa Valeriani, and Angela Vettese.