ART CITIES:Paris-Giovanni Anselmo
The exhibition comprise one of the artists key sculptural installation works, Il panorama verso oltremare intorno dove le stelle si avvicinano di una spanna in più (The Panorama Towards «Oltremare» Where the Stars are Coming One Span Nearer). The installation comprises 22 granite stones juxtaposed with several minimal columns of ultramarine paint applied directly to the walls of the Marian Goodman Gallery. This important work encompasses the founding principles and the aesthetic language the artist has developed through his practice.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Marian Goodman Gallery Archive
As in each of his exhibitions, Anselmo employs a compass to precisely choreograph and orientate each of the fragments of granite in the direction of the energy of the North Magnetic Pole. Positioned on the gallery floor, each of the granite blocks correlate with the astronomical siting of stars within the sky. Key to Anselmo’s practice is the employment of ultramarine pigment within his work, something he has done since 1979. Here, three large vertical columns of ultramarine have been placed at specific locations on the gallery walls according to the same astronomical orientation. Ultramarine was originally obtained from the grinding down of the semi-precious mineral element, Lapis Lazuli and imported to Europe from Afghanistan. Its inclusion here mediating the solid mass of the granite and allowing the viewers to project themselves out of the gallery space. In this installation, Anselmo explores the possibilities of “humanizing making the vertiginous distance” that separates us from the stars and our positioning within the universe. The viewer is invited to walk around and within the installation to discover its panorama. Concerned with the fallibility of measurement, each granite block presented is one hand span high, an ancient way measuring without apparatus using only ones hand.
Info:Marian Goodman Gallery, 79 Rue Du Temple, Paris, Duration: 23/10-17/12/14, Days & Hours: tue-Sat: 11:00-19:00, www.mariangoodman.com
