Opening: Tuesday, April 22, 2025 | 6:00 – 8:00 pm
On view: Wednesday, April 23 – Friday, April 25 | 11:00 am – 6:00 pm
Location: Residency Unlimited
360 Court Street (main green church doors), Brooklyn NY 11231 (map)
Please join us for the exhibition “A Color Spreads” featuring RU resident duo Genuardi/Ruta, curated by RU Curator Data Chigholashvili.
The works of Genuardi/Ruta often explore how form and color respond to the spaces they are exhibited in. The central piece reflects on the Kufic script, reinterpreted as Neo-Kufic writing, an ornamental expression of Islamic civilization. Its structure draws inspiration from nature, unfolding in space like plants do: rooting, adapting, and stretching according to the architectural characteristics of the environment that hosts it. A symbolic reference for Genuardi/Ruta is a budding flower about to bloom, a form in potential, ready to open. Central to the piece is the experimentation with materials, which continually transforms the way it is perceived, offering a dynamic sensory experience. New York is a city of strong visual and emotional intensity, marked by complex architectural interlocks and the coexistence of highly diverse elements. This urban diversity and complexity have been translated into an essential sculptural form, where each element coexists in harmony while maintaining its own identity. All of this is reflected in a work that lives in close relationship with the space around it, articulated through two postures, two attitudes in dialogue with one another, like two different ways of inhabiting.
About
Genuardi/Ruta is an artist duo formed by Antonella Genuardi and Leonardo Ruta in 2014 at the Academy of Fine Arts in Palermo. Genuardi/Ruta’s way of working starts from an idea of painting that gradually, over time, seeks physical space, architecture, first as a support and then as the driving force and reason for the work itself. Their works have always aimed to convey the profound essence of places, starting from the light that touched, colored, and gave them meaning. Gradually, they moved to actively engaging with architecture, using geometry to synthesize its specific features, free spaces from their assigned functions, suggest new perspectives, or translate luminous relationships. In their most recent projects, this painting – that ‘reads’ and frees a space – has been transforming into a painting that ‘builds’ a space, a painting to be inhabited.
This program is supported, in part, by public funds from the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs in partnership with the City Council.
This program is supported by Elenka per l’arte, Fondazione Sicilia, Ruber Contemporanea, Nicoletta Rusconi, and ADVANT nctm.
