Andrew Iacobucci

COLLI is pleased to present "Eulogy," the first solo exhibition by Andrew Iacobucci in the gallery's space.

The title originates from the Greek term "εῑλογία," meaning "praise" or "blessing." In its most common sense, it refers to a eulogy or commemoration, often in a funeral context. In English, it is closely linked to speeches given at funerals, whereas in Italian, it retains a broader meaning, referring to a tribute that is not necessarily tied to death.

In the early Church, "εῑλογία" referred both to the fragments of consecrated yet unconsumed Eucharistic bread and to the hosts offered for the sacrifice, blessed by the priest and then distributed to the faithful. This dual meaning reflects the tension between the act of communication and its inevitable imperfections.
Iacobucci presents a series of works titled 'GESSI,' gypsum backgrounds onto which he applies broken birthday candles. As quintessential childhood symbols, the candles, once shattered, evoke the interruption of a discourse, the fragility of expression, and the ineffability of language. Much like the Eucharistic bread, which loses its integrity once broken, these fractured candles symbolize the same idea.

Indeed, the desire to translate microscopic experiences and complex emotions into words or speech often clashes with their natural untranslatability. Crystallized into white gypsum slabs, austere and lapidary, these collapsed forms of writing evoke a sense of everyday delicacy. "Eulogy" is the vain attempt to narrate emptiness, to give shape to absence with words that crumble in the very act of expression—like a linguistic gesture approaching a profound truth without ever fully exhausting it.
Thus, the exhibition becomes an intimate and personal ceremony, a play of forms that narrates the irony and impotence of language.

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