359 - LEON LOWENTRAUT (Germany, 1998)

LEON LOWENTRAUT (Germany, 1998) "Portrait of Leon Faun." 2018. Photographic giclée. Signed and dated. Measurements: 9 x 12,5 cm.(signature); 57 x 57 cm.(frame). Leon Löwentraut was born in Kaiserslautern, Germany. His interest in art came early on, influenced by his mother's painting. At the age of 15, he already had his first exhibition in a gallery near Munich. His style is unmistakable: vibrant brushstrokes, dynamic forms and intense colors that combine expressive abstraction with ornamental figures and structures. He skillfully manages his media presence and positions himself as an influential artist of his generation. His exhibitions have toured cities such as New York, London, Singapore, St. Petersburg, Florence, Copenhagen, Vienna, Venice, Zurich and Madrid. Among his most notorious initiatives are: The #Art4GlobalGoals campaign with UNESCO, a series of 17 works on the Sustainable Development Goals. The imposing mobile sculpture Global Gate, assembled with ISO containers replicating the Brandenburg Gate and exhibited in places such as Frankfurt airport and in front of the Burj Khalifa in Dubai. In 2021 he was included in Forbes' "30 Under 30" list, highlighting both his art and his social impact interventions. In 2023 he received the Ernst-Barlach-Preis for contemporary art, awarded by the José Barlach Gesellschaft in Hamburg, in recognition of his innovative artistic approach. He was also invited as a lecturer at the Hochschule Kaiserslautern to design the concept "Future Exhibition Design" and presented the interactive installation Volar, which won the ADC Gold Award and the DIVR Science Award 2023. In 2022 his first monograph appeared, published by teNeues, with around 220 photographs and augmented reality integration, offering videos of his studio, interviews and key moments. He lives and works mainly near Düsseldorf, but also has an atelier in Portugal. Leon Faun is an Italian rapper and actor. His taste for music manifested itself at a very young age with artists such as Jimi Hendrix and Eminem, but also thanks to his family, who brought him closer to art in all its forms. At the age of 12, his passion for writing was born and, a few years later, he found himself writing in an environment with several artists in Fiumicino; there he began his musical career with his childhood friend Duffy, who would accompany him in each of his projects. In 2015, his first songs were released on YouTube under the name LYO. In 2016, he made an appearance in Cosimo Alemà's film, Zeta - Una storia hip-hop. In 2017, under the pseudonym LYO, he released the EP Endless, produced by Duffy, Thasup and Prince.wav, and the single Terabithia. The following year, the song Animus was released, the first single under the pseudonym Leon Faun, released as NEW CHALLENGER on AAR Music's YouTube channel. The following singles are part of the Cronache di Mairon project: produced by Duffy, under the artistic supervision of Eiemgei, they are accompanied by videos made by Thaevil that visually complement the atmosphere and recurring fantasy themes in his songs. The project's first single was Horia, followed by Cioccorane and Primavera in 2019. With the latter, he achieved good numbers and began to become known. In September, he returned with Taboo, a single that can be considered the sequel to Cioccorane. At the end of 2019, Oh cacchio (certified gold disc) was released, a song that closes the first cycle of the Mairon chronicles and that gave the artist greater visibility, so much so that he was chosen by director Claudio Cupellini as the lead actor in the film La terra dei figli, released two years later. In 2020, he released the songs Gaia, La follia non ha età and Occhi lucidi (certified gold disc), followed by Camelot on June 15, 2021, which anticipated his first studio album, C'era una volta, released on June 25, 2021. The album reached the 5th position on the FIMI Album chart. That same year, he collaborated with Izi on the song Flop, included in the album Riot. In 2022, he appeared on Sick Luke's album, X2, in the song Sogni matti, conceived together with Drast and certified gold record. In May of the same year, he released the single Pioggia, included in the digital re-release of his first album.