Ruben Montini’s work is political even when it is intimate. Or, political because it’s intimate: As a gay man and heir of feminism, when Montini considers the universal he begins with himself, he protests the evils of the world by anchoring them to his personal experiences of injustice. Beginning from and returning to his body, he leaves little to abstraction.

His art is not limited to denunciation: He has the courage of affirmation. Montini is Italian, or rather, Sardinian, which is not the same thing, and the act of experiencing what occurs within Sardinia, Italy and Europe is always present in what he does. He studied in Venice, Manchester, and London, and spent years in Paris and Berlin before deciding to return to Italy. He belongs to that polyglot generation for whom the European Union means the peaceful coexistence of different people, minority protections, and the hope of progress toward the better.

from MONTINI’S ASYNCHRONICITIES By Lorenzo Bernini, Translated from Italian by Julia Heim