In a decrepit old theater, ghostly figures clamber over seating that we viewers cannot see. Some figures have red patches on their clothes evoking blood, others clutch at their heads – are they zombies? Or is this a spectral vision of the 2015 terrorist attack that took place at the Bataclan Theatre in Paris? Were we there that fateful night and now working through our repressed memories? @margaret_mccann_art writes that the painting evokes a singular scene from Kubrick’s ‘2001: A Space Odyssey,’ “…oddly echoing the hominids around the alien monolith.” Or perhaps this is a dream? It feels patchy and incomplete, as dreams often do. Therein lies the beauty of Desiderio’s work; he vaguely alludes to various references in a single vision, but nothing is definitively nailed down. We will forever take pleasure in trying to unravel the enigma.
