Have you ever felt secularized?

Think about this, when the alarm rings, perhaps on the cell phone, it is not a ritual, but always a nuisance, and so what? So you erase the sacred from your daily journal, while on vacation God is dead in the summer myths and it�s ok, but with all the possible choice of words it is one thing to quote Guccini and another to quote Vasco Rossi. Or maybe not; I was too hasty in my criticism: for example, I can already see you entering the crypt of a church, maybe one that holds the remains of your favorite saint, especially since you surely have a list of your top ten favorite saints and a collection of religious figurines. I see you reflected in the gilded metal ex votos hanging on the wall: legs, hearts, even an exquisite little painting of boats and storms for those of you who, like me, come from an ocean front city.

Or maybe the old churches do not interest you and yet, surely, walking the streets of your city you have seen a colorful and unexpected memorial to some unfortunate deceased on a street corner or in the subway. If you are secularized this is only sad and if you are not, this is indeed sad, but also fascinating.

I am referring to the religion of the people, always and everywhere savage and pagan; a sacred so awkward and so real that it claims a physical space and finds it unexpectedly before your very eyes when you least expect it.

This is my critical perception of Brutti ma Buoni, the exhibition of Gaia Scaramella and Glen Sacks at Temple University; indeed, I distance myself from the ethical and culinary interpretation suggested by the chosen by the title.

I tell you immediately and certainly: this stuff is powerful.

The most interesting thing is the two diverse realizations of the sacred that the artists depict, based on their cultures: Italian and American.

In the personal statements adjacent to each work, Glen Sacks impressed me with the precision and depth of his research, which might have escaped an initial and superficial viewing. Instead, Gaia Scaramella gave me the impression of being too academic towards her work, as if she looked at the work from a distance, with an anthological and almost excessively calculated approach. However, it was enough to turn towards the wall for my heart to be pierced, just like the sheets, with incisions and nails, covering the entire wall. These works complete a repertoire that includes the most classical images - hearts, arms, severed limbs - forcing us to face the essence of this ritual: giving thanks for a desperate wish.

"These nails, so effective, could remind us of the crucifixion or voodoo," I tell Gaia Scaramella, she herself somewhat witchlike in her appearance. She responds: "I accept these references, but it was not my intention to focus on them." I indulge in the absolute fascination of this work; the transferring of the three dimensional ex voto on the flat surface, in black and white (except for some alchemical touches of blue and red, blood, pencil marks to mark the errors and lots of other things) which bring the entire work into a dimension of reflection which is part of the artistic act.

Signs and drawings obsessively repeat themselves, some objects are repeated in a sequence like stereotyped desires, just like an ex voto which is mass produced, intense and varied stories perhaps made banal in an identical image.

The photographic work of Glen Sacks is just as deep. This very charming American searched for contemporary altars in his beloved New York and in his hometown Philadelphia.

The works represent the sacred hidden in the heaps of toys in memory of a dead child, kitsch paintings on street corners, but also abandoned houses, a bit in the tradition of Hopper, where the sense of abandon coincides with the search for a spirituality which is touching for the awkwardness which it evokes.

Stripped of ritual, the photographs of Glen Sacks seem like primitives � they hear but they cannot explain themselves. Instead, we have lost the alphabet, or maybe we buried it under the golden friezes of the cathedrals.

There is a world of differences between the European approach to the sacred of Gaia and that undeniably American vision of Glen, who gives voice in these works in particular to afro-american and latino communities where violence and prayers are particularly noisy. Glen himself talks disarmingly of what 9/11 represented for Americans, just as �The king is naked� is for children and �God is dead� for Nietzsche. As I was saying, the inability to believe indeed conceals a terrible desire to believe. There is almost nothing that matters more and this superb exhibition has a voice which is deep, strong and resonant with accents.

Dettagli: Brutti ma Buoni. Tra l�estetica e il sociale nelle fotografie di Glen Sacks e nelle installazioni di Gaia Scaramella. Da poco conclusasi alla Temple University Rome, in collaborazione con la Galleria Z2O Sara Zanin. Info: Shara Wasserman: s.wasserman@tiscalinet.it. Altro qui pubblicato: http://www.artapartofculture.net/2010/10/05/brutti-…