François Morellet 19 March - 8 May 2009 Artefiera Bologna 23-26 January 2009
FRANÇOIS MORELLET Catalogue with essay by Luca Massimo Barbero
Opening Thursday 19 March 2009 at 6.30 p.m. 19 March - 8 May 2009
On 19 March 2009, an exhibition of works by the French artist François Morellet will open at the A arte Studio Invernizzi gallery. The exhibition - which will take place in the gallery’s enlarged and renovated premises - will centre around a group of important works reflecting the artist’s most recent output and designed in relation to the exhibition space. In order to stress the close relationship of the works with their setting, Morellet will also create a site-specific intervention in the large new exhibition room on the mezzanine floor: the spatial dimension and physical and perceptive involvement of the spectator as part of the surroundings, of which he or she experiences a special and specific moment, are crucial aspects of his poetic practice. The forms and balances of Morellet’s interventions always involve a variety of elements, such as the graphic sign, sculpture, painting and installation, and are founded on rational and cognitive systems that are the basis for their coming into being and construction. The rationality of their development is grafted onto the emotivity of the particular moment when they are observed: the works are formed in space as a means for capturing the energy that pervades the surroundings, never failing to open themselves up to emotivity that is entirely free and varies with the endless coming into being of time. Created from 1963 onwards, Morellet’s neon works are a means for inscribing his forms - now consisting of vital light - more forcefully in the occurrence of events. The artist’s approach to life - allowing him to create a vibrant and dialogical relationship with it - involves participation in the events of the world and their coming into being, which takes the form of specific and always unique fragments. Works representative of Morellet’s output from the 1950s to the 80s will be on display in the gallery’s other spaces.
François Morellet exhibited at the A arte Studio Invernizzi gallery in 1994 (with Dadamaino and Günther Uecker), and has also had shows here with specific interventions in 1997, 2000 and 2005.
On the occasion of the exhibition, a bilingual catalogue will be published with reproductions of the works, an introductory essay by Luca Massimo Barbero, a poem by Carlo Invernizzi and up-to-date biographical and bibliographical notes.
ENRICO CASTELLANI FRANÇOIS MORELLET
a cura di Francesca Pola e Federico Sardella
Inaugurazione sabato 21 marzo 2009 ore 18.30
21 marzo - 18 maggio 2009
A ARTE INVERNIZZI SERAGIOTTO Via Petrarca 9 35137 Padova Italy padova@aarteinvernizzi.it www.aarteinvernizzi.it
On Saturday 21 March at 6.30 pm, the Galleria A arte Invernizzi Seragiotto opens its new exhibition space in Padua with an exhibition of works by Enrico Castellani and François Morellet, two leading exponents of the European art of the second half of the twentieth century. The result of collaboration between Epicarmo Invernizzi and Mauro Casotto Seragiotto, this new gallery is intended to continue what the A arte Studio Invernizzi gallery has been doing since 1994 in Milan, where it has featured artists of different generations, both Italian and foreign, in order to create a dialogue between them. This has resulted in a panorama as complete as possible of ‘contemporary’ creativity regarded as that which, already in the present, is also future memory. The intellectual and human understanding that unites Enrico Castellani and François Morellet is indicative of a creative accord that has expressed itself - with their well- characterized specificities - in two parallel paths that cannot be superimposed, but are linked by a strong awareness that artistic activity is a responsible cognitive endeavour. Proceeding with rigour and diligence so as to respect their own vision, these are two artists who, in their work, have interpreted and often foreshadowed characteristics and aspirations of the modern age. This exhibition includes important works by Enrico Castellani: four “Superfici bianche" (White Surfaces) measuring 150 x 150 cm each, in which the progression and the rotation of the visual and physical dynamic organizes the space of the wall into a complex hypothetical dimensionality that is multiplied by the number of points activating it. In addition, there will be four large works in François Morellet’s “Décrochage” and “p piquant neonly” series, in which an invitation to follow certain paths of vision, interrupted or contradicted by the fragmented light pulsation, is accompanied by the creation of a situation of tension. The spectator’s gaze shifts continuously from the perception of the whole to the unexpected presence of the individual element and from the regular, rhythmic geometry of the entire construction to the unpredictability and precariousness of the experience that involves living it from within and entering the image. The works of the two artists, displayed in parallel spaces that, however, allow a close dialogue, are exhibited on this occasion in all their actuality, with the intention of reconfiguring the experience of the space according to coordinates that link the rational aspect of a physical investigation of the many dimensions constituting it to a desire for the spectator’s participation. This proceeds continuously from the spatial and emotional experience in accordance with a genuinely human proportionality and sensibility. On the occasion of the exhibition a bilingual catalogue will be published with essays by Francesca Pola and Federico Sardella accompanied by photographs of the works on display. For further information and images tel. 0039 338 1226110
