Galleria Raffaella Cortese presents LA CONVERSIONE DI SAN PAOLO by Marcello Maloberti in Albisola Superiore, curated by Giulio Dalvit.
The Albisola project is rooted in one of the founding episodes of the Christian tradition: the fall of Saul on the road to Damascus, struck by divine light that blinds him and transforms him into the apostle Paul. Fall and beginning coincide in this moment of trauma and revelation. Maloberti engages with the precious Ligurian space through a small gesture: turning a 19th-century crucifix towards the light of the world. Suspended on the wall, the work looks outward through the small window that characterizes the exhibition space.
The cross, held in tension by industrial supports, echoes the very form of the window’s wooden frame. The crucifix enters into dialogue with the intimate atmosphere of the gallery, reminiscent of one of the celebrated frescoed cells by Fra Angelico in the convent of San Marco in Florence; while the window frames the face of Christ, turned toward it, almost as if it were a kind of halo.
Maloberti addresses the theme of the sacred through a gesture that takes shape in silence and suspension. The artist thus goes beyond a mere iconographic reference to the celebrated Caravaggesque subject, restoring instead its dramatic structure: reversal, sudden void, the space that opens to the unexpected.