Kiddy Citny. Die Welt im Arm

This is the German artist Kiddy Citny's first exhibition in Rome. He opens, with Die Welt im Arm, the BQB Art Gallery's season with the first of four solo shows scheduled until June 2018. A pioneer of the Berlin Wall, musician and representative of the vital underground culture during the last decades of the previous century, he proposes from the 5th of October, the day of the inauguration, until November the 21st in via Panico, a selection of twelve artworks created in 2016 and 2017 - a new production linked to the image that made him famous in the '80s.

Citny began to cover, with images and messages of liberty, the west side of the barrier (the only area painted until the wall was demolished) which for 28 years split the present German capital into two cities, until 1984. Interpreted as symbols of hope and disobedience, his Kings and HeartFaces - enormous crowned or heart shaped faces, reassuring presences over the gray absurdity of the iron curtain - have watched from their three meter height some of the most disturbing pages in history. There are several elements that were added later to this initial nucleus: figures holding worlds in their arms, young King-children or Queens, Wizards, but most of all Women, with enchanting faces with their eyes focused on reality, or more often in provocative poses to discuss sex and taboos.

In this exhibition at the Baronato Quattro Bellezze the prevailing themes are from his early work but there are even incursions into his recent figurative repertoire with some large ancestral feminine subjects. The images, often as in much of his work, are surrounded by short slogans, single words or brief phrases disarmingly evident as his messages are clear and straightforward. If the HeartFaces refer to union or duality, Kings and Queens, exhibited here in a preponderant number, tell you what you should feel each day and how, despite everything, you should hold your head high.
Kiddy, however, has always talked to the man in the street, from whom he has drawn his vision of life: "I am directed to an art that feeds on our everyday life, an art that emerges from these lives, and which nourishes their truths"

Kiddy Citny was born in Stuttgart (1957), grew up in Bremen and went to Berlin in 1976 where with a series of intervals (Amsterdam and London 1979, Zurich 1980, Berne 1989-1990, Los Angeles 1993-1994, Monaco 2000) he still lives and works. Founder, in the late '70s, of the OUT project in which Nina Hagen also collaborated, in 1981 he originated the Kassettekombinat record label and the post-punk ensemble Sprung Aus Den Wolken, which played in some tours with the Einsturzende Neubauten. The Pas Attendre track was used for the soundtrack of the Wings of Desire by Wim Wenders.
He was especially known, with Thierry Noir, Christoph Bouchet and many others, for being among the first to intervene on the Berlin Wall, covering it with meters and meters of graffiti. During its dismantling many of its pieces were sold and today are scattered between Europe and America. He gave priority to painting in the early 90s and took part in the East Side Gallery (the longest outdoor gallery in  the world) on the remains of the Wall in the east side of the city. He has exhibited in Hamburg, Munich, Cologne, Berlin, Merano, Paris, Vienna, New  York, Los angeles, Dubai and Bangkok. His art works are permanently exhibited in museums and public areas: Markisches Museum, Berlin; La Defense, Paris; 53rd St. Plaza and Intrepid Museum, New York; Leipziger Platz and Potsdamer Platz, Berlin; Salsali Private Museum, Dubai and Musee-Würth, France.

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