Opening: Friday, 24 February 2006. From 7.00 to 9.30 p.m.

From 24 February to 31 March 2006. Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday: 11.00 1.30 / 2.30-6.30; Saturday: 10.30-1.30.

Press Release

Gallery B: TIM ROLLINS and the K.O.S.

The language of music has existed throughout history and, although it is made up of abstract codes, paradoxically it reaches each and everyone of us, with no need for mediation.

This writing system represents its time through notes on the stave both in historical and formal terms, just as literature does through letters. In their third exhibition in Naples, Tim Rollins and the Kids of Survival explore this writing system and make its content visible.

Through group work, under Rollins’s supervision, these kids paint canvas printed with staves by Haydn or Schubert, onto which they represent the emotional content of classical pieces of music.

In literature, Rollins’ commitment provides the members of the K.O.S. – kids coming from socially disadvantaged backgrounds – with the culture of the upper classes through reading and debate. As a natural conclusion to this process, the text content is turned into visible materials on canvas, which is what happens also with music.

Through cooperation, the artist produces his or her own art in a way which reduces the artist’s individuality to a minimum and highlights the value of the group methodology. Through art, participants are thus redeemed, and are brought back to the social condition they have formerly been denied. Creativity undergoes a democratisation process while social welfare is liberalised. These concepts, in their widest meaning, are a fundamental part of the history of art and the corresponding sense of beauty.