Massimo Antonaci presents Hypotenuse
From Black to Transparency / A Solitary Journey
across a Single Body. From East to West 33 Stations in an Unknown Land / Opus
13 May–31 July 2012
Collezione Maramotti
Via Fratelli Cervi 66
42124 Reggio Emilia – Italy
T +39 0522 382484
info [at] collezionemaramotti.org
Hours: Thursday and Friday 2:30–6:30pm
Saturday and Sunday 10:30–6:30pm
Free admission
From 13 May to 31 July 2012 Collezione Maramotti presents an in-depth look on Massimo Antonaci’s work; the Italian artist moved to New York in the 1990s.
Hypotenuse is a project that comprises three exhibitions displayed in different spaces within the Collection, one of which has never been opened before.
From Black to Transparency is a retrospective look cast on a series of works in glass and tar that the artist started in the mid ’80s. The pieces displayed combine the two materials that take on their mutual qualities: the hardness and depth of tar, like magma, welcome the images and melt into the pliability of glass through the action of fire. A transformation of shapes and material, which the artist calls “alchemic.” In each piece, glass and tar follow a compositional rhythm marked by 60 x 60 cm modules. The modules create a surface, a virtual grid, a “white page,” a place where image takes form and formal signs encounter space. Antonaci’s sculptural work is meticulously defined, tying the light and the wall closely together, creating shadows as the work’s third dimension. The wall is a skin separating the inside from the outside and the nails are what glue all the parts together.
A Solitary Journey across a Single Body. From East to West 33 Stations in An Unknown Land is a series of Polaroid pieces composed of glass tiles and placed side by side that narrate Antonaci’s pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela. The Polaroid composition placed between the two glasses that comprise each “station” follows particular formal and symbolic criteria.
The Santiago trail, a reflection of the Milky Way on earth, is an inner journey, a key moment in a profound process of “self-recognition” and “transformation.” The Polaroid pictures taken along the way are not merely photographs documenting the different places, but projections of inner images emerging from the “physical fatigue experienced during the trek.”
Opus is a project made specifically for Collezione Maramotti that comprises four triptychs (Snake, Circle, Alchemic Doors, Stone). Each piece in this work is fermented virgin papyrus marked by oil color touches. The four papyrus triptychs in the work Opus were started by the artist toward the end of the glass production, when his earlier work reached complete transparency. They, too, express pure abstraction.
Finally, the publication Odos (Danilo Montanari Editore) is an anthology of words and images that Antonaci has compiled over the course of twenty years. The fragments of text are Sutra by Raphael, whereas the images evoke the journey of iconographic cross-references that have accompanied the artist’s work from its very beginnings. Odos is flanked by a text by Marco Belpoliti.
The exhibition, on free admission, can be visited during the opening hours of the permanent collection.
Image above:
Copyright and photo Massimo Antonaci.
