Il fuoco della Natura / The Flash of Nature

The exhibition features paintings, photographs, sculptures, videos and installations by 82 contemporary artists coming from 18 different countries (Australia, Chile, Cuba, Germany, Great Britain, Israel, Italy, Japan, Macedonia, Mexico, The Netherlands, Poland, Russia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and USA).

In essence, through a sequence of sublime images, The Flash of Nature, an exhibition promoted and realized by the Cultural Department of the City Council of Trieste, curated by Marco Puntin and Jonathan Turner, presents present-day symbols of the force and the beauty of Mother Nature, at this time of environmental uncertainty and climate change.

This exhibition looks at the many aspects of nature, both from the perspective of long geographical distances and in magnified close-up. It includes spectacular landscapes from around the globe depicting tropical rainforests in Latin America, the Arctic seas, the Australian bush, the Californian desert, and mountain ranges from the Dolomites and the Himalayas to Mount Fuji.

Through the eyes of artists, we see animals, plants and the natural world in all its splendor, beauty, power and perfection. The choice of the theme was determined by the conviction that Nature as a subject represents the ideal mediation between the art world and the viewing public. Realistic imagery produced by contemporary artists provides an instantly recognizable map of the natural world, free from changes in fashion or the technological input of man.

Evolution has its own slow pace, but man’s intervention with nature can be sudden, radical, disruptive and sometimes seemingly permanent. But nature can bounce back in surprising ways. So, alongside the aesthetic criteria behind the selection of specific paintings, photographs, installations and videos, in The Flash of Nature, we pose ethical questions directly linked to the works exhibited. We look at how we continue to consume and eradicate endangered species for food, clothing and medicinal purposes. The images of nature are perfect, while the implications of our ability to pollute and destroy are infinite.

Beginning with three iconic black-and-white landscapes by Ansel Adams, the exhibition includes the historical presence of such masters of photography as Robert Mapplethorpe, Gianni Berengo Gardin, Franco Fontana and Mario Giacomelli. As the show progresses, it is divided into sub-themes, including different sections dedicated to the ocean, winter landscapes, flowers and volcanoes (as represented in a painting by Cristiano Pintaldi, a graphic work by Julian Opie and a photograph by Nan Goldin).

Given the immense size of the ex-Pescheria, the two curators Marco Puntin and Jonathan Turner have taken the decision to focus on presenting large-scale works. The works selected come from important private collections, art galleries and in some cases, directly from the artist’s studio.

The exhibition has been installed in an open architectural labyrinth designed by Gian Paolo Vernier and Luigi Semerani from ell(E)gi Architecture, Trieste. The design features three pavilions constructed below the cast-iron girders of the vast space of the former Pescheria (fish markets) in the waterfront of Trieste. One pavilion is dedicated to the theme of animals, including “portraits” created in different techniques: a chimpanzee (Andrew Zuckerman), a shark (Robert Longo), a horse (Albano Guatti), a snake (Daniel & Geo Fuchs), a deer (Santiago Ydáñez), a chihuahua (Gabriele Bonato), a tuna (Luigi Serafini), a panda (Antonio Riello) and a Wunderkammer of embalmed beasts (Francesca Martinelli). Another pavilion is dedicated to the majesty of mountain landscapes: the Dolomites (Olivo Barbieri, Riccarda De Eccher, Giorgia Fiorio), a sacred mountain in Tibet (Monika Bulaj), a glacier in Chile (Luca Campigotto) and peaks in Argentina (Michael Najjar). The third pavilion is devoted to film projections by two artistic duos, Masbedo and Allora & Calzadilla, the latter who represented America in the national pavilion at the 2011 Venice Biennale. Their works are among the few on show that include the human presence, so this third pavilion is like entering a separate house, where the viewer inside looks through windows to the world outside, at the surrounding nature. Upstairs in the ex-Pescheria, the auditorium will be used to project a series of video works by Alfredo Jaar (Chile) and Ana Mendieta (Cuba), coming from the prestigious La Gaia Collection in Busca.

THE FLASH OF NATURE also features works by the American masters of Pop Art Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist and Jim Dine, British art stars Mat Collishaw, Darren Almond and Marc Quinn, such “wild-cards” as Russian Oleg Kulik, Macedonian Robert Gligorov, and the Americans Ed Ruscha, Bill Beckley and Andres Serrano, the Dutchman Anton Corbijn, and Germans Elger Esser and Julian Rosefeldt.

These days, while most environmental news is marked by tragedy, several works show nature valiantly fighting back – Massimo Crivellari’s photographs of the forest slowly growing back over the venues built for the 1956 Winter Olympics in Cortina, Stefano Scheda’s images of wild plants reclaiming an abandoned house, and Giacomo Costa’s massive lightbox showing a jungle strangling architectural ruins, previously exhibited in the Italian pavilion at the 2009 Venice Biennale.

In collaboration with research provided by the Civic Science Museums of Trieste and WWF Trieste (World Wildlife Fund), the exhibition takes a firm stance on such local and global issues as pollution, endangered species and disappearing habitats.

Salone degli Incanti - ex Pescheria
Riva Nazario Sauro 1
Trieste
Italy

for info:
Centro Nazionale di Fotografia
info_expescheria@comune.trieste.it
http://www.triestecultura.it
tel:040 3226 862

ANTONIO RIELLO Ashes to Ashes, 2011 (detail)

Swept Away: Dust, Ashes and Dirt
in Contemporary Art and Design

MAD has explored the intersection of traditional or unusual materials and techniques as viewed through the lens of contemporary art and design in a series of exhibitions that include Radical Lace and Subversive Knitting; Second Lives: Remixing the Ordinary; Slash: Paper Under the Knife; Dead or Alive: Nature Becomes Art; and Otherworldly: Optical Delusions and Small Realities.

The next investigation into unusual mediums features an international group of artists whose major materials are dust, ashes, dirt, and sand. Swept Away: Dust, Ashes and Dirt in Contemporary Art and Design will highlight works that deal with issues such as the ephemeral nature of art and life, the quality and content of memory, issues of loss and disintegration, and the detritus of human existence. Sculptures made from ash by Chinese artist Zhang Huan, life-size sculptures of unfired dirt by American artist James Croak, and works created from city smog by American artist Kim Abeles, among others, illustrate the transformative potential of humble, overlooked, and discarded materials.

Swept Away Projects
February 28, 2012 - May 14, 2012

An extension of the Swept Away exhibition, Swept Away Projects will include a series of "live" installations occurring during the run of the exhibition that will allow audiences to experience and interact with artists and their site-specific installations made of ash, dust, sand, and dirt. The series includes a dust installation by Croatian Igor Eskinja, a sand installation by German artist Elvira Wersche, and a chalk installation by British artist Linda Florence. In some instances, visitor will actually get to sweep away the installations by walking through and touching them, participating in the ephemeral nature of these artists' output.

Participating artists include: Phoebe Cummings (U.K.), Dirt / Paul Hazelton (U.K.), Dust / Kim Abeles (U.S.), Smog / Igor Eskinja (Slovenia, U.K.), Dust / Lee Stoetzel (U.S.), Sand / Alexandre Orion (Brazil), Automobile soot graffiti (video) / James Croak (U.S.), Dirt / Elvira Wersche (Netherlands/Germany), Sand / Catherine Bertola (U.K.), Dust / Jim Dingilian (U.S.), Smoke / Studio Glithero (U.K.), Fire and Smoke / Su Zhiguang (China), Urban Soot / Andy Goldsworthy (U.K.) sand photographs / Stephen Livingstone (U.K.), Smoke and Ashes / Cai Guo-Qiang (China/U.S.), Gunpowder ash / Julie Parker (U.K.), Lint / Antonio Riello (Italy), Burned books

Swept Away: Dust, Ashes, and Dirt in Contemporary Art and Design is made possible by the Inner Circle, a leadership Museum support group, and with public funds from the Netherlands Cultural Services.


MAD - Museum of Arts and Design
2 Columbus Circle
New York, NY 10019
Italy

for info:
info@madmuseum.org
tel: 212 299 7777

Renée Levi - Antonio Riello

(...) Antonio Riello is one of Italy’s most eclectic, visionary and controversial artists, working in techniques as varied as painting, sculpture, design, photography, installation and video-games. Incorporating the ironic manner of a conceptual charade, Riello manipulates and almost mistreats the images and objects which he invents.

Currently a one man show of him is running at GUDRUN FUCKNER GALERIE in Ludwigsburg (D).

Galerie Gudrun Fuckner
Marktplatz 4
Ludwigsburg
Germany

for info:
kunst@galerie-fuckner.de
http://www.galerie-fuckner.de

The Cross Shown

The first crosses mentioned by archeology date back to Mesopotamia.
As a geometric symbol the Cross serves a function of synthesis, measure, mediation, communication. It establishes in fact other relations with the other signs: thecenter, in the intersection of the two lines; the circle, as it may be inscribed in it; the square and the triangle, as the shapes variously generated by the conjunction of extremities through segments of lines.
The same intersection of lines in a given point defines also the idea of different and opposed motions, centrifugal and centripetal.

Symbolically the Cross represents the conjunction of the Earth with the Sky, of Space with Time. Its shape may be actually assimilated to the emblematic figures of the Bridge and the Ladder indicating a passage, a path towards something. And here the Christian symbology intervenes, with the Cross as the symbol of Christ’s martyrdom and the sufferance of humanity, a moment suspended between life and death, but also the hope of the resurrection which presupposes a radical change.
The exhibition project aims at offering an array of possibilities as vast as possible in relation to the theme, open to all types of languages, in order to create a thriving blend of ideas and visions, an exchange involving different generations of Italian and international artists.

As in a unique installation, the whole gallery space will be invaded from the works by our guests :
Jannis Kounellis | Thomas Lange | Jonathan Meese | Mimmo Paladino | Arnulf Rainer | Marco Tirelli | Wolfgang Betke | Daniela Comani | Bertram Hasenauer | Alec von Bargen | Giovanna Bolognini | Gabriele Bonato | Agenore Fabbri | Pipo Hernandrez Rivero | Marco Grimaldi | Felix Curto | Sadegh Tirafkan

Nuova Galleria Morone
via Nerino, 3
Milano
Italy

for info: +39 02 7200 1994

http://www.nuovagalleriamorone.com