Brand New Gallery is pleased to present Snails, solo exhibition of London-based French artist Nicolas Deshayes.
Deshayes presents two huge modular and futuristic installations, one composed of eight big panels in plastic and aluminum, in which the mechanic and organic forms are molded together; the second, more sculptural one, transfers his work to a horizontal plane. To accentuate the artist’s interest towards the past, small friezes are placed in unreachable spots on the walls, fleeing from the spectator’s distracted sight, notifying the anachronistic past.
The discrepancy between the existence of disordered bodies in antithesis to aseptic obsessions to which we are exposed on a daily basis, interests Deshayes’ works which trigger an investigation through the manipulation of surfaces. The membranes of his pieces recall biological forms, denying the artificial materials and industrial techniques used during the production process.
Despite his preferred materials are commonly associated with minimalism, most of Deshayes’ works evoke organic and malleable forms. The artist molds its properties through chemical and industrial processes: anodized aluminum, vacuum formed plastic, molds and fusions are transformed into devices that generate synthetically colored futuristic works recalling the ‘80’s.
Nicolas Deshayes shapes hybrid sculptures, endowed with strong cultural and stylistic references, with a vigorous sense of hyper-materiality. His works combine mechanisms and materials that distort the ordinary, maintaining the human presence while embracing the lacquered aesthetic canons of the XXI century. While the human body is never directly included in his works, its qualities are always present, emphasizing the conflict between the permanence of materials, treated with a chemical and demiurgic approach, and the transience of the human body.
 
Nicolas Deshayes was born in 1983 in Nancy, France. After having obtained his bachelor at Chelsea College of Art and Design and a Master at the Royal College of Art, specializing in Sculpture, he participated to different exhibitions and art events in Europe and in the United States. Recently his works have been included in solo shows at Jonathan Viner Gallery in London and LISTE in Basel; group shows at the David Roberts Art Foundation, London, the Wysing Art Centre, Cambridge, Marianne Boesky Gallery, New York and James Fuentes in New York. In the summer 2013 he will have his solo exhibition at S1 Artspace Museum in Sheffield. His works are included in important public and private collections such as the Saatchi Gallery in London. He lives and works in London.

Viafarini DOCVA presents Luca Monterastelli‘s solo exhibition. white - endlessy rocking, a project that epitomizes the commitment of the Milanese non-profit organization to foster the dialogue between artistic practices and workshop – oriented, handcrafted and industrial productions.
Monterastelli inquires into the relationship between material and tecnique inside the aesthetic artists’ research. White – endlessy rocking proves how the connection between visual art and other kind of art drives to an accelerated process of creation. In the same way this process establishes a new collaboration between art and designers‘ culture.
The exhibition itinerary creates a sculptural world, marked by Baroque elements, using the Faenza traditional ceramic manifacturing techniques, as well as incision processes and investment casting. The exhibition in characterized by material drifts, condensations and hardenings, organized in a specific Neoclassical installative matrix: compressing without strangling: literary references, coreographic strategies and fleeting architectures, incorporations and impulses’ excessive deployments. Building, stockpiling, drawing and moving.
Monterastelli‘s solo show highlights a real revenge of secondary objects, materializes figures of speech, using material in a citationist way and tautological elements focusing on their deviances and preciousness. Meanwhile, the sculpture refuses the attribution’s game. A non rethorical plaster work, used in a onomatopoeic value. A simple, trivial, phenomenological white. A pornographic scenario. Non fetishist.
 
At 5.30 pm, a conversation with the artist, the curators and the three partners involved will introduce the exhibition. On this occasion, the artist‘s career and a series of publications and documents of project’s partners will be presented.
 

Luca Monterastelli Solo shows: 2012: open studio Parc Saint Léger, Centre d‘art contemporain Parc Saint Léger, Pougues-les-eaux (F); Graceland - Chez Néon - Diffuseur d’Art Contemporain, Lion; 2011: La camera degli sposi - a work for a couple, MARS, Milan Artist Run Space, Milan. Group shows in 2013: Senza Titolo, Michele Guido, Domenico Antonio Mancini, Luca Monterastelli, Lia Rumma, Naples; nel 2012: MARS mission, Geh8, Dresden; nel 2011: Un problème insoluble, La Friche la Belle de Mai, Marseille; nel 2010: Una luce rischiara l‘oscuro scrutare. La morte non sa leggere, curated by Marco Tagliafierro, galleria 1+1 Milan; All strange away, curated by Beniamino Foschini, neon>campobase, Bologna; L’uomo ridotto, curated by Luca Francesconi, Brown Project Space, Milan. Residencies in 2012: Residénces secondaires, Centre d'art contemporain Parc Saint Léger, Pougues-les-eaux; nel 2011: Solid Void, Progetto Diogene Bivacco Urbano, Turin; Residency Suddenly, Beauchery-Saint-Martin; Residency Triangle France, La Friche La Belle de Mai, Marseille
Thanks to Luca Francesconi and Lia Rumma Gallery for the organization and the logistical support.