The Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation presents, from 7 April to 2 October , Sayre Gomez 's first solo exhibition in Italy (USA, 1982). The exhibition presents a cycle of new paintings, specially made by the artist for this occasion, inspired by the building renovation process in downtown Los Angeles known as the “ Renaissance Collection ”. An increasing number of pseudo-Italian style apartment complexes have sprung up over the past decade at the hands of a notoriously unscrupulous building contractor. The complexes are called Da Vinci, Visconti, Ferrante, Medici, and are aimed at a recent middle-upper class interested in projecting themselves into fantasies of European culture and style.

Sayre Gomez 's hyperrealist paintings often show Los Angeles cityscapes in a time of decay or aging, revealing the brutal reality of an all-encompassing logic oriented and directed by the economy. In the cycle of paintings presented at the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation , Gomez avoids daylight and immerses the scenes in twilight or night, when the streets are lit only by neon lights. In the nocturnal context of the “ Reniassance Collection ” the artist represents a scenario that arose from an accident in 2014, when the Da Vinci complex, still under construction, caught fire at the hand of an anonymous person as a gesture of vindication against social injustice. The subjects represented are some architectures of the district such as a steel staircase structure that remained isolated following the fire, a symbol of urban planning and gentrification processes, or a building on whose facade stands a banner with the inscription TheMedici.com, in front of an international skyscraper.

Through this cycle of works Gomez reflects on the imaginary of Los Angeles, seen by Europe as the epitome of American culture, with its film and advertising industry, and by Medici apartment buildings as a place where the European and Mediterranean architectural cliché can find its its realization.