777 kilometers separate Via Ventura 6 in Milan from Via dei Mille 60 in Naples, home to Prometeo Gallery Ida Pisani and PAN - Palazzo delle Arti in Naples, respectively. Omar Hassan will spend 96 hours traveling across Italy round-trip to dismantle his solo exhibition in Naples and set up his new one in Milan, reaffirming the performative vein that distinguishes him as a painter.
True to the principles of Prometeo Gallery, the Egyptian-born artist does not remain idle in the face of a confused panorama, waiting for clarity to return. Instead, with his fighting spirit and aligned artistic exploration, he embodies ideas of movement and local action, as if time had no end goal but was inherently included and understood.
By working with distances and proximities—not just as a common practice of space and time but as a true way of seeing—Omar Hassan allows us to assume a privileged position: in-between. This is a time that seeps into interstitial and seemingly inessential spaces where life infiltrates.
Whether he dons boxing gloves (Breaking Through), marks the passage of time in his productions (Timelines), repeats spray-painted dots as a daily gesture synthesizing street art, rationality, and irrationality with direct ties to his personal life (Injection), or paints on reproductions of the Nike of Samothrace or spray can caps (Caps), Omar Hassan achieves the ambitious goal of giving tangible form to a time that is inherently indefinable—one that cannot, by definition, be represented or comprehended.
How? By giving the body of his works the character of an addition: the sum of action and idea, transcending the mere description of events to instead reveal the aesthetic scope, nature, and quality of his processes.
In this way, one can settle into the entirety of the exhibition space, exploring the intervals between works and being encouraged to question oneself and use one’s gaze differently—to inhabit time in-between.
