Negativo is an exhibition that comes from Built on a Lie, a project by Numero Cromatico born out of two separate and current research projects. The first one, by Dionigi Mattia Gagliardi, is about the perception of faces; the second one, by Manuel Focareta, is about the production of texts through the use of automatic generative processes. 

Negativo is a project on the relationship between text and image, where representations of neutral faces are analysed in relationship with words perceived as “negative”. 

The exhibition is displayed in two areas. In the first room there is an installation made up of a grid of unframed paintings. The grid alternates words and faces in a way that the same word can be paired with more than one face and vice versa. In the second room there are five framed diptychs each one constituted by a drawing of a face with a neutral expression and a drawing of a word with a negative meaning. 

The aim is to understand whether the viewers’ perception can be influenced by associations that take place in an automatic and unconscious manner. 

The project, starting from a merely aesthetic consideration, opens up to important social and political instances. Do we all perceive in the same way? Is that which we consider our own thought actually influenced and manipulated by external factors? Are we able to stop and delve deeper? Is that which we consider to be certain, certain for others as well?