Stephen Dean. I mutanti

I Mutanti serves as the exhibition catalog to the French Academy in Rome - Villa Medici exhibition of the same title. The catalog is made up of five volumes that correspond to the five artists participating in the show. The work of Adel Abdessemed, Stephen Dean, Ellen Gallagher, Adrian Paci, Djamel Tatah makes it clear from the outset that they come from complex historical backgrounds. The unifying concept between these artists lies in their approach to expressing how individual cultural identities develop as a result of migration, colonization, and post-colonial sentiments in the Western world. The artists themselves are multinational, multi-ethnic, or multicultural, and at times all three; however with such infinite reference and concourse, they neither obliterate each other in the name of some idealized community nor efface distinct histories and pasts into the melting pot of the ever more globalized world. Above all, their creations are the concrete result of the process of hybridization. Their works are products of mixed media and various developments, which produce multi-faceted pieces upon which the concepts of identity and multiculturalism can be reflected and interpreted on an infinite number of levels. The Villa Medici offers I Mutanti a home that looks significantly toward the future while maintaining a close tie to the past in a city whose history has been built on influences of hybridization through continuous contact with different civilizations, Rome