ART CITIES:Venice-W.W.W. What Walls Want
Ilaria Bignotti’s research areas are focused on the European art of post-war period, with particular attention to Spatialism, Object-painting, programmed and kinetic art; on the relationship between contemporary art and social-political spheres, on the extension and translation of the artwork in environment, on the relation between art, urban space and public actions, on the resilience of artistic languages in the contemporary sculpture and installations.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Marignana Arte Archive
The theme of the group exhibition “W.W.W. – What Walls Want” is strongly aligned with both the identity of Marignana Arte Gallery and the curatorial orientation of Ilaria Bignotti. If we take the title’s initials “W.W.W.”, they are sent directly on line to the digital world that celebrates the potential of the collective involvement used in the artwork and the immersive experience. On the other hand, reading the title of the exhibition in its extension, it asks us, and foremost the artist, “What do walls want?” or rather how does the artwork fit in with the space around it, intended as how the surfaces welcome the image, how the osmotic walls of a metaphysical vision and also like an osmotic membrane, activate the exchange among artwork, artist, and spectator. Mats Bergquist’s project is enriched by a precious and refined research that expresses itself in pastic forms, both concave and convex, heirs of ancient rituals between man and space. Alessandro Diaz de Santillana, presents his work of absorbing mystery. The relationship between surface and depth and duly create dialogue with each other. Riccardo De Marchi is an artist of refined poetry seeking an analysis of the relationship between the surface and its potential of artistic activity that goes beyond ordinary vision. Alberto Gianfreda and Serena Fineschi “shatter” the certainties of their artwork as two-dimensional objects, the former bending the sculptural and iconic laws and the latter teasing, in a conceptual way, the severity of the image. Nancy Genn’s is artwork is an osmotic process of organic power. Demineralization of the defined rapport between the surface and the ground, between field and vision, resides with Emil Lukas, an advocate of a vibrant weave that creates light, between density and emergency, in an exceptional work of art; while Artur Lescher, measures the bond between man and space that solidifies in iconic objects precise, with an extraordinary tidiness. The artwork by Silvia Infranco, enjoys an active dialogue with Mats Bergquist’s work, thanks to the use of organic materials such as wood, water, paper, and wax. They emerge from the walls with an ancient presence, malleable witnesses to our nervous gaze between past and present. Antonio Scaccabarozzi, was a member of the conceptual season and the analytical Europe; a rigorous representative of a pure and contemporary pictorial style, yet to be discovered within his profound legacy. Roy Thurston, is leader in analytical America, with his totemic painting, bewitching, conceptual and metaphysical, made of slow repetition of metallic souls playing on the walls in an unsettling and hypnotic dialogue.
Info: Curator: Ilaria Bignotti, Marignana Arte, Dorsoduro 141, Rio Terà dei Catecumeni, Venice, Duration: 23/5-8/9/18, Days & Hours: Tue-Wed 14:00-18:30, Thu-Sat 11:00-13:30 & 14:00-18:30, www.marignanaarte.it
