The A arte Studio Invernizzi gallery will be opening on Thursday 16 May 2013 at 6.30 p.m. a solo exhibition of the German artist, Günter Umberg. As has been the case of the previous exhibitions held in the gallery since 1996, also on this occasion the artist has specifically ideated an exhibition plan in which the “corpus” of works is considered in relation to the exhibition space.
 
By way of a coherent artistic approach Günter Umberg very personally interprets and investigates the theme of the monochrome with the result that his works acquire the “status” of fully corporeal entities, concrete and accomplished conditions, inextricably forming part of the context of the real and of lived experience.
The first room of the gallery‘s upper floor will exhibit the work “Territorium 20A, 2012, 2013” made up of six works ordered and placed on the walls so as to create a definite space suited to perceptive experience, in this way creating a dialogical connection between the works, the room and the spectator who is called upon to interact and become an active part of the work and space.
The second room of the same floor will, for the first time in Italy, present a group of works dating to 1976: these are sheets of transparent paper immersed in pure pigments mixed with wax and paraffin on which the artist made holes.
Following an intense dialogical procedure that continues what is exhibited in the other rooms, the rooms of the lower floor of the gallery house “Territorium 22, 2013, 2013” and a number of recent works characterised by intense colours.
“For Umberg” as explained by Paolo Bolpagni “the monochrome is living and pulsating energy, the condition and place of infinite possibilities: it is like the point that contains everything ‘in nuce‘ and potency, an original (‘ursprünglich‘) a-dimensional entity where, however, totality is already present. It is not something casual that he likes citing an episode from the life of Bernard of Clairvaux who on being asked about the concept he had of God replied: ‘Height, length, width, depth’. With this there is no intention to affirm that in Umberg there are necessarily transcendent or metaphysical ’traits‘ but, if anything, that the characteristics in which the medieval saint summed up the idea of the Supreme Being are the same nucleus of the notion of painting developed by him. A painting that in the monochrome has its fulfillment, its completion and its ‘raison d’être‘”.
 
On the occasion of the exhibition a bilingual catalogue will be published with reproductions of the works on show, an introductory essay by Paolo Bolpagni, a poem by Carlo Invernizzi and an up-to-date biographical and bibliographical notes.

STEFANO ARIENTI
Manifesti
 
Giovedì 23 maggio 2013 dalle ore 18.30 inaugura una nuova mostra personale di Stefano Arienti dal titolo “Manifesti”.
 
Per la sua nuova mostra personale presso lo Studio Guenzani, Stefano Arienti presenta dei lavori realizzati nel 2013.
Si alterneranno nelle due sale della galleria manifesti traforati e sculture di terracotta. Come accade spesso nei suoi lavori, anche in questo caso l’artista ha scelto di lavorare due materiali poveri, la carta e l’argilla cruda.
Il processo di lavorazione di questi avviene in alcuni casi contemporaneamente, utilizzando aghi e altri strumenti. Traforando il manifesto, l’artista trasferisce l’immagine nell’argilla ancora soffice. Seguendo le linee e i contorni principali dell’immagine del manifesto, Arienti opera la propria personale reinterpretazione della stessa donandole un nuovo significato.
Terminata la lavorazione il manifesto viene esposto mostrandone il retro: una superficie bianca sulla quale i fori suggeriscono la figura di partenza.
I soggetti di queste nuove opere sono quelli dei posters da collezione. In vendita nei bookshop, alle mostre o nei mercatini, si tratta di immagini riconoscibili da tutti, tratte dalla storia dell’arte: Picasso, Matisse, Mucha, Klimt, Botticelli, quelli più famosi. Emerge ancora una volta l’importanza che ha la ricerca, la collezione, la decontestualizzazione delle immagini, ma anche l’elemento giocoso all’interno di tutta la produzione di Arienti.
La tecnica della traforatura era già stata sperimentata in passato dall’artista. Alla fine degli anni 80’ Arienti aveva eseguito i primi posters traforati e nel 1989 aveva realizzato una grande scultura in terracotta traducendo in centinaia di mattoni due libri di disegni.
 
La mostra inaugurerà in parallelo con la galleria Marignana|arte di Venezia, che aprirà la sua programmazione proprio con una mostra dedicata all’artista mantovano.
 
Stefano Arienti è nato ad Asola (Mantova) nel 1961. Vive e lavora a Milano
 
La mostra proseguirà fino al 26 luglio 2013
Orari: dal martedì al sabato dalle 15.00 alle 19.30. La mattina su appuntamento.
Per maggiori informazioni:
t: 02.29409251 mail: info@studioguenzani.it

Massimo De Carlo is pleased to present How To Live? a solo exhibition by American artist Andrea Zittel. The exhibition will present five new works from Zittel‘s ongoing series, Prototypes for Billboards, and a video titled How To Live?: A dynamic essay about liberation and it’s complexities.
 
This new video portrays a settlement in the southern California desert, on a piece of land that no one seems to own. It is free to live on this land and there are no restrictions on what people can or cannot do there. With this glimpse into one community‘s liberation from mass society, the video touches on the existential nature of freedom, as it’s price, and meaning are called into question.
 
In contrast to the outdoor settlement presented in the video, the painted billboard prototypes depict intimate and detailed interiors from the artist’s home, the ongoing site-specific project entitled A-Z West, also located in the southern California desert. As the images of these domestic settings embody the same questions that emerge in the video work, we see the artist carry the weight of these questions into the everyday and every action.
 
The overarching question of How To Live? is lifted directly from the essays of Michel de Montaigne, who’s life’s writings comprise a massive volume of essays and anecdotes on all the nuances of day-to-day living. Zittel, like Montaigne, in a very personal and idiosyncratic manner, continues her life’s work of asking these questions, constantly rewriting them, and allowing them to evolve in accordance to time and place.
 
Andrea Zittel was born in 1965 in Escondido California. She received a BFA in painting and sculpture from San Diego State University, and an MFA in sculpture from the Rhode Island School of Design. In the early 1990s she first established her practice in New York. One of her most visible projects in New York was A-Z East, a small row house in Brooklyn which she turned into a showroom testing grounds for her prototypes for living. In 1999 she moved back to the West Coast, eventually settling in the High Desert region next to Joshua Tree National Park at founded A-Z West. Andrea is a co-organizer of the High Desert Test Sites and the A-Z smockshop in Los Angeles. Her work has been included in group exhibitions such as the Venice Biennale, Doccumenta X, Skulture project in Munster, and both the 1995 and the 2004 Whitney Biennials. She has had solo exhibitions at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; The Carnegie Museum in Pittsburgh; The Diechtorhallen in Hamburg; the Whitney Museum of American Art at Altria, NY; The Museum for Gegenwartskunst in Basel; The Louisiana Museum in Denmark, the Schaulager in Basel and Magasin 3 in Stockholm. Her 2005-2007 North American traveling survey show Critical Space traveled to The New Museum, The Contemporary Arts Museum, Houston, TX; the Albright Knox museum in Buffalo, NY; the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, and the Vancouver Art Gallery.

Prometeogallery di Ida Pisani is pleased to announce the opening of the exhibition “Trauma of the Exposed Body”, the first solo project of the acclaimed Romanian artist Ion Grigorescu, in the gallery’s premises in the Church San Matteo, Lucca.
 
Curated by Maria Rus Bojan, the exhibition revisits an important period from his creation, presenting works from the end of the 1970’s, when the artist investigated body issues through self-performative practices and also newer works, in which the body plays a central role.
 
Within the recent history of Romanian art, Ion Grigorescu has been one of the first artists who examined the social and cultural significance of body art, providing a new conceptual framework for defining a particular neo-avant garde that underlines the dramatic shift in the conception of the artistic subject.
 
Embracing a rather particular mix of approaches and spiritual perspectives, Ion Grigorescu practices body art as a mode of transfiguring himself, and as a tool to interrogate the meaning of his own existence, and also of the human condition in general.
 
“Trauma of the Exposed Body” is an artistic approach that reiterates the idea that the essence of life is inscribed on our body. Referring to the biblical moment when Adam and Eve, having disobeyed God by tasting fruit from the Tree of Knowledge, lose their innocence and become suddenly aware of their nakedness, Grigorescu emphasizes his own trauma caused by revealing his nude body in front of divinity. A practicing Christian and an artist who earned his existence by painting orthodox churches, Grigorescu underlines that the biblical sense of nudity indicates man’s spiritual purity and therefore, it is not a sacrilege, nor an offense to present himself naked before God.
 
The exhibition describes the artist’s struggle to conciliate the fundamental contradiction between his desire of experiencing nakedness as an expression of primordial spiritual purity and the traumatic acknowledgement of the original sin. Considering that too many layers had covered the spiritual nakedness of this world, Ion Grigorescu has chosen the oldest church from Lucca, the 10th century Romanic Basilica San Matteo, as a background for a spiritual unfolding of his ritual of harmonizing the body and mind. One can perceive this performative approach as a ritual of healing and of liberation from dogma and prejudice.
 
Conceived to work as a single installation, the display alternates projected images alluding to Christianity from his most famous 1970’s series of photographic works, such as “Ritual Bath” and “Washing with Light “, with mundane elements such as “White Wash”, “Braiding Hair”, “Athletics” or “Homage to Muybridge”, and with a more recent video projection entitled “Start”. The aim is to create the impression of a performative frieze that adds a different layer to the already sacred and charged space of the church.
 
Ion Grigorescu – born in 1945 in Bucharest, where he lives and works – is one of the most important representatives of performance and conceptual art in Romania and Eastern Europe. After 1989 he gained international recognition, and his works were shown at important exhibitions such as the São Paulo Art Biennial (1981 and 1994), Wanderlieder, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1991); Le corps photographié, FRAC Alsace (1996); The Body and The East, Moderna Galerija, Ljubljana; Out of Action, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (1998). Among his most recent exhibitions are Ostalgia, New Museum, New York (2011), Les Promesses du passé, Centre Pompidou, Paris (2011), and the solo exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2009), and the National Museum of Art, Cluj-Napoca, Romania (2011). He represented Romania at the Venice Biennale in 1997 and 2011.

Aldo Mondino: nomade
a cura di Achille Bonito Oliva
 
Milano, Fondazione Mudima
5 giugno - 5 luglio 2013
Inaugurazione: martedì 4 giugno, ore 18.30
 
Dopo la mostra personale di Aldo Mondino tenutasi nel 1990 alla Fondazione Mudima di Milano, a distanza di 23 anni, viene ripresentata nella stessa sede una significativa selezione di opere a cura di Achille Bonito Oliva e in collaborazione con l’Archivio Aldo Mondino. Dal 5 giugno al 5 luglio, si ritrovano alcune delle grandi installazioni realizzate per quella storica occasione, oltre ad alcune opere scelte tra le serie più note dell’artista torinese (1938-2005).
 
A testimonianza del periodo trascorso dall’artista a Parigi dal 1959 al 1960, anni in cui frequenta l’École du Louvre e stringe amicizia con Tancredi entrando in contatto col milieu intellettuale dell’epoca, si ritrova in mostra la scultura in bronzo Tour Eiffel (h. circa 2,40 mt.), vero e proprio assemblage dei più disparati oggetti del suo studio a formare un ironico omaggio al simbolo della capitale francese. Insieme all’altra scultura bronzea Arabesque, l’ingresso alla mostra è segnato dalla presenza di Ittiodromo una potentissima installazione del 1967 che accosta uno scivolo per bambini a un vero pesce di grandi dimensioni lasciatovi sgocciolare sulla superficie.
Dal 1963 - quando rientra in Italia, e in occasione della mostra torinese alla Galleria Sperone del 1964 - i temi del gioco e dell’infanzia diventano ricorrenti nella sua ricerca artistica che incomincia a fare della relazione col pubblico uno strumento attivo di partecipazione all’opera.
 
La riflessione sulla storia della pittura e sulle tecniche diventa l’elemento portante di molte opere, come quella con i palloncini qui esposta, proveniente dalla serie creata nel 1965 per la Galleria Stein di Torino. L’elemento ludico e partecipativo è del resto presente in tutta la sua opera successiva, accompagnato all’uso di materiali extra-pittorici, effimeri e talvolta edibili che, come ha lui stesso dichiarato: “sono il frutto di quella dimensione miope, di quella distanza che mi fa vedere da lontano un oggetto che da vicino diventa un altro…”. Lo testimoniano le installazioni realizzate con la pasta di caramella, col cioccolato o con lo zucchero, come nello spettacolare Muro del Pianto (4x6,40 m) fatto di zucchero e costruito all’interno dello spazio espositivo o nell’ambiente interamente ricoperto di marshmallows realizzato al piano terra o nell’installazione a pavimento Raccolto in preghiera, un enorme tappeto di preghiera fatto da decine di granaglie diverse. In dialogo con quest’ultimo, su una grande parete, sono esposti i celebri Tappeti realizzati su eraclite, un materiale usato nell’edilizia, in colori brillanti: sovrapposti e accostati conferiscono alle sale dello spazio milanese la girandola di colori di un fantasmagorico suk medio-orientale.
 
Costantemente mobile nei suoi riferimenti e nel gioco delle sue sfide ai luoghi comuni, la mostra indaga così anche quella parte della ricerca di Mondino contaminata dalle suggestioni orientali ed esotiche immagazzinate nei tanti viaggi dal Marocco alla Palestina. Elemento presente in mostra anche nelle opere dedicate ai Dervisci rotanti, dove Mondino intravede, come ha lasciato scritto “…un affascinante parallelismo tra la preghiera e l’intensità dell’attenzione nel dipingere in modo concettuale, innamorandomi della preghiera esaltata delle danze dei Dervisci”.
La grande installazione del 2005 dedicata a I cacciatori di orchidee, composta da tre grandi serre e ambientata a pianterreno, riafferma quel misto di nostalgia per l’esotico, per l’arcano misterioso e l’immancabile ironia che contraddistingue l’opera di uno degli artisti italiani più significativi dell’arte contemporanea.
 
Accompagna la mostra un catalogo edito da Mudima Edizioni, con testi di Achille Bonito Oliva, Gianluca Ranzi e una selezione di testi di Aldo Mondino.
 
Scheda della mostra
Titolo Aldo Mondino: nomade
A cura di Achille Bonito Oliva
Sede Fondazione Mudima | Via Tadino 26, Milano
Date 5 giugno – 5 luglio 2013
Inaugura martedì 4 giugno, ore 18.30
Orario lunedì – venerdì 11.00 - 13.00/15.00 - 19.30
Ingresso libero
Catalogo edito da Mudima Edizioni, con testi di Achille Bonito Oliva, Gianluca Ranzi e una selezione di testi di Aldo Mondino.
 
Info al pubblico Archivio Aldo Mondino
T. + 39 02 33 60 77 05 | info@aldomondino.it
Fondazione Mudima
T. +39 02 29 40 96 33 | info@mudima.net | www.mudima.net
 
Ufficio stampa NORA comunicazione – Eleonora Caracciolo di Torchiarolo
Via A. Sforza 9 | 20136 Milano t. +39 339 89 59 372
info@noracomunicazione.it | www.noracomunicazione.it