MARZIA MIGLIORA | LIA RUMMA

MARZIA MIGLIORA | FORZA LAVORO | LIA RUMMA
18.02.2016 - 31.03.2016

Galleria Lia Rumma is pleased to present Forza lavoro (Work force), a solo exhibition by Marzia Migliora, opening at the gallery in Milan at 7 p.m. on 18 February 2016.
The project takes its inspiration from the history of the Palazzo del Lavoro in Turin, which was designed by Pier Luigi Nervi to celebrate the 1961 centenary of the Unification of Italy. It was part of an international exhibition dedicated to work, curated by Gio Ponti. This glorious beginning was followed by years of neglect and decay, ultimately leading to the 47,000-square-metre building being abandoned.
In a period of transition for the building, which included a serious fire in August 2015 and the imminent transformation of the building into a luxury shopping mall, Marzia Migliora has chosen to frequent the Palazzo in a number of different ways. The artist has given body and word to the building, turning it into a privileged observer of an era, and her individual works link it to many of the recurring themes in her artistic research: memory as a tool for articulating the present and an analysis of work as a statement of participation in society.
The three floors of the gallery are entirely devoted to the latest works by the artist, who has concentrated one particular aspect of her study of the Palazzo on each floor. At the entrance, we find the installation entitled L’ideazione di un sistema resistente è atto creativo (“The design of a resistant system is a creative act”), which introduces a more tangible definition of a workforce. On a scale of 1:1, a great structure of coal briquettes on the floor recreates the pattern of isostatic ribs that form the ceiling designed by Nervi, who intended to give shape to what occurs statically in matter, through the distribution of force lines on the surface. Going upstairs we come to a series of photos called In the Country of Last Things, with five impressions obtained using pinhole devices made by the artist, who assembled various fragments of the past lives of the Palazzo, leaving them to expose for a long time in the disused spaces. Next to the prints and the pinhole machines there are a number of black monochromes obtained by processing the combustion residues left by the recent fire and other dark powders obtained as waste from metalworking. The act of blending them together in a pictorial manner renders their presence in our lives both visible and tangible: the so-called volatile organic compounds of man-made origin, which are harmful to the health. These are as imperceptible as they are ubiquitous in our everyday lives, which depend so much on derivatives of petroleum and on their countless processed forms.
The exhibition ends on the top floor with Vita Activa. Pier Luigi Nervi, Palazzo del Lavoro, Turin, 1961- 2016, a video in which the artist asks the musician Francesco Dillon to create sounds by interacting with the premises and debris of the Palazzo, and then including them in his cello performance of excerpts from Mozart’s Requiem in D minor, K626. The clash between the funerary commemoration of the piece and attempts to listen to the space as an expression of its most recent potential for creating meaning, ends in a visual tension that makes manifest the parable of life and death on which Forza lavoro is built.

Critical essay by Matteo Lucchetti

Thanks go to Francesca Comisso and Liliana Dematteis of the Archivio Gallizio for their assistance and support in making the Vita Activa video, which first arose from an invitation to create a project that would interact with the work by Pinot Gallizio. Thanks go to Fondazione Merz and Proprietà Pentagramma Piemonte for the precious collaboration.

http://www.liarumma.it/exhibitions/forza-lavoro/

TOBIAS ZIELONY | LIA RUMMA

TOBIAS ZIELONY
Dream Lovers. The Films 2008 - 2014

Opening 19.02.2015 h 19.00





Galleria Lia Rumma is pleased to announce Dream Lovers: The Films 2008–2014, the third solo exhibition in Italy of works by Tobias Zielony. The opening is on Thursday 19 February 2015 in the Gallery's spaces in Naples. Selected by Florian Ebner for the German Pavilion at the forthcoming Venice Biennale, Tobias Zielony is now showing eight videos made between 2008 and 2014, after the exhibitions in 2007 and 2010, which were held in the former premises in Via Solferino in Milan, and in Naples respectively. VELE DI SCAMPIA was created for the 2010 exhibition in Naples, the city that has influenced him more than any other metropolitan area, and is being shown again on this occasion. Consisting of 7000 photographs taken at night with a digital reflex camera and mounted at artificial speeds, it adopts the visual language of film to convey the difficulties faced by those who live in and frequent these places. His artistic practice combines a social and documentarist approach with a more conceptual one, describing the living conditions of adolescents in the world that they inhabit on the fringes of society. Tobias Zielony has been round the world to tell the story of the dark side of adolescence and has portrayed the night-wandering teenagers of Los Angeles, the little Manitoba Indians in their reserves, the squalor of Knowel West in Bristol and the northern districts in Marseille, life in the Halle-Neustadt complex made by the DDR, kids in the Vele di Scampia, and young people in Ramallah. Most of his sitters pose proudly, imitating film and rock stars, illustrating their dreams and aspirations, and conveying a mythical vision of themselves, yet their melancholy looks reveal the chasm between illusion and reality, between mythical fantasy and the world they live in. Right from the outset, his artistic research has adopted a narrative and visual approach that is typical of cinema, heightening the gap between the real and the unreal, and between what goes on behind and in front of the lens. In BIG SEXYLAND, 2008, his first film, which is set in a porn theatre in Berlin where young male prostitutes from Eastern Europe spend their time, Zielony films the face of a sleeping man rhythmically lit up by the flickering reflections of a film projection. In MANITOBA, 2008, Zielony is in Winnipeg, Canada. Shot in Super 8, it records the story of a prisoner, a member of Canada's First Nations, who survived a ritual before being allowed to leave the gang. In 2013 the artist made another two films in Berlin as part of his JENNY JENNY project: DER BRIEF (THE LETTER) shows two prostitutes talking with a colleague, who has aroused such passion in one of her clients that his constant threats have forced her to change her place of work. Her admirer's love letter lends authenticity to the story. In DANNY, 2013, Zielony follows a woman waiting by the side of a country road on the outskirts of the Ruhr region, showing where she takes her clients and the little coloured plastic lights she uses to attract their attention in the dark. In THE STREET(C.P.A.) he illustrates the world of underage Bangladeshi refugees living without their parents in a reception centre on the outskirts of Rome: the road that leads from the camp towards the city and to the beaches, where the kids sell electronic gadgets to tourists, is the stage on which they perform. In 2014 Zielony made two films while working for a couple of months in Ramallah. AL-AKRAB (THE SCORPION) pays tribute to the opening scene of the surrealist film L'Âge d'or by Luis Buñuel. Zielony's most recent film is KALANDIA KUSTOM KAR KOMMANDOS, and it is also the first on which he has worked on the stage design: a remake of Kenneth Anger's Kustom Kar Kommandos (1965), it is set near the Kalandia checkpoint, a very busy crossing point through the wall that divides Ramallah from Jerusalem.

Tobias Zielony (Wuppertal, Germany, 1973) studied at the Academy of Visual Arts in Leipzig.
In 2001, after studying Documentary Photography at the University of Wales in Newport, he frequented the Artistic Photography course held by Timm Rauterts at the HGB in Leipzig. After graduating in 2004 and receiving a Masters degree in 2006, he moved to Berlin. He was awarded the GASAG-Kunstpreis in Berlin, and in 2006 he won two scholarships in New York and Los Angeles. He later put on solo exhibitions in international galleries and museums, including C/O in Berlin (2007), Kunstverein Hamburg (2010), Folkwang Museum in Essen, MMK Zollamt in Frankfurt, Camera Austria in Graz (2011), Philadelphia Museum of Art (2011) and the Berlinische Galerie (2013). He has been invited by Florian Ebner to the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 2015. He lives and works in Berlin.


Galleria Lia Rumma
Via Vannella Gaetani, 12 - 80121 Napoli - Tel +39 081 19812354
Via Stilicone, 19 - 20154 Milano - Tel. +39 02 29000101
Orari galleria: martedì-sabato 11.00-13.30 / 14.30-19.00
www.liarumma.it - info@liarumma.it




Art_prospect

HAIM STEINBACH | LIA RUMMA

Haim  Steinbach | COLLECTIONS

Galleria Lia Rumma, Milan, February 6, 2013 - April 6, 2013

Opening: Wednesday February 6, 2013, h. 6pm-9pm

Gallery opening times: Tuesday – Saturday, h. 11am-1.30pm / 2.30pm-7pm

What difference is there between the domestic environment and the artistic context? Don’t both involve displaying something? And aren’t the objects that are presented laden with meaning in both cases? (...) We are all collectors. It is a part of our nature. 

(Haim Steinbach).

…before introducing the display of structure and objects, it's important to study the given site; the floor, the walls, the door etc.

The work of "setting in motion”the environment by carrying out operations of the architecture…Steinbach takes on this dimension and seeks a correspondence that enhances the fluidity between object and context. 

(Germano Celant). 

In his solo show at the Lia Rumma Gallery Haim Steinbach employs standard architectural building materials - metal studs, drywall, prefabricated shelving units, paint and wallpaper – evoking both domestic and institutional spaces as places ready for presentation. The artist exhibits over 50 objects selected from seven collections. The objects are arranged and placed on shelves, and are displayed on both the permanent gallery walls and Steinbach’s temporary walls.

The concept for the exhibition began with a proposition to the collectors to choose, with mutual agreement, approximately a dozen objects belonging to them. Steinbach subsequently made a selection by reducing the collection to a few objects, at times punctuated by the inclusion of an object from his own collection. 

Walls, banisters, fences and furniture articulate categories of spaces and define boundaries for activities and rituals. Inadvertently they also stage real life in a way that underscores its theatricality. The “props” employed by Steinbach re-enact that fine line between the every day and its surroundings. The introduction of the collected objects sets in motion the social dynamic of “the relation between ‘the subjective’, search for meaning and ‘objective things.’” 

On the ground floor a group of objects from Lia Rumma’s collection mark the long relationship of friendship and collaboration between the dealer and artist. The glass and ceramic vases, plates, bowls, cups, wine decanters and sculptures are lined up on an extended prefabricated shelving unit that bisect the space. These personal belongings are contrasted by an elongated shelf, built into the adjacent wall framing, which supports a series of objects from an extensive collection of African tribal currency. On the opening night 6 musicians will employ another typology of objects, wind instruments. They will perform a range of sounds and musical sequences.

Over the years Haim Steinbach has put into use a shelf of his own invention that he refers to a as a device. It is a device that divides in that it is made of proportionally equal units of different sizes. These are calibrated in relation to the objects they support, and that are contingent on each other. On the first floor three such works are distributed on the gallery walls with each one holding a group of objects from a specific collection. A skeletal wall traversing the space includes a shelf with a selection of small unselected ceramic objects from the three collections. 

A collection of pipes and punches is presented on a bare studded wall built in the middle of the second floor space. These are displayed in relation to a work hung on the gallery wall and holding a selected group of the African tribal currency. A work, “Untitled (plant, artichoke)” 2013, with objects chosen by Haim Steinbach from his own collection is also introduced here. In doing so, Steinbach exposes the contingency of objects to their context. While architecture shapes space, in this third room, the shape of things shapes space. While we experience space in volume and in relation to scale, it is the language of shape, pattern and surface that is the grounding reality, the cultural matrix of connectedness. 

Haim Steinbach was born in Rehovot (Israel) in 1944 and in 1957 moved with his family to New York. He received a BFA from Pratt Institute in 1968 and a Master’s degree from Yale University in 1973. His first museum show was in 1988 at the CAPC Musée d’Art Contemporain in Bordeaux. For Documenta 9 (1992), Steinbach borrowed and displayed several objects belonging to the director Jan Hoet,. His works have been exhibited on various occasions at the Venice Biennale (1993, 1997, and 2001). Important exhibitions of his work have been organized by the Solomon Guggenheim Museum (with Ettore Spalletti, in 1993), the Castello di Rivoli (in 1995 and 2004), the Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig in Vienna (1997–98), the Neuer Berliner Kunstverein (2000), the Berkeley Art Museum and the Pacific Film Archive (2005). In 2012 the Artist's Institute in New York devoted a series of exhibitions over a 6-month period to the artists’s work, and it also asked the artist to curate an exhibition entitled The Bigger Picture. He has taught at various institutions including The School of Visual

Arts in New York, and the University of California in San Diego. 

Haim  Steinbach | COLLECTIONS

Galleria Lia Rumma, Milan, February 6, 2013 - April 6, 2013

http://www.liarumma.it/

ANSELM KIEFER | LIA RUMMA

http://labrouge.wordpress.com

ETTORE SPALLETTI | LIA RUMMA

Galleria Lia Rumma Via Vannella Gaetani 12 - 80121 Naples Italy EuropeT: +39 081 19812354 F: +39 081 19812406 M: W: www.liarumma.it   10 Nov 2011 to 31 Dec 2011
Artists in this exhibition: Ettore Spalletti
Ettore Spalletti opening: giovedì 10 novembre 2011 h 18.00 Galleria Lia Rumma, Via Vannella Gaetani 12 - 80121 Napoli Un giorno ho visto Spalletti disporre i cavalletti in studio in modo diverso. Gli ho domandato il motivo. Mi ha risposto che lavorava alla mostra per la galleria di Lia Rumma a Napoli. Ha voluto che lo spazio fosse vuotato e che il pavimento fosse lavato. Lo osservavo passeggiare nello studio in cerca di una luce, di un’ombra, come per trovare un’immagine per poi liberarsene un attimo dopo. La geometria dello studio poco a poco veniva scomposta dai tagli ordinati dei cavalletti. Ho sentito che aveva già precisato un percorso ma non riuscivo ancora a comprenderlo. Spalletti prepara le tavole meticolosamente, il retro viene coperto perchè non ama le sbavature. Dipinge tenendo le tavole in orizzontale, mi spiega che in questo modo la pasta di colore si stende meglio: “il colore si stende, asciuga, ispessisce, riposa”. L’impasto di colore viene dato sulle tavole, quasi alla stessa ora, per dieci o quindici giorni, fino ad ottenere uno spessore che non consente di capire se “il colore dalla superficie si muove verso l’interno del quadro o se dall’interno si muove verso l’esterno”. I tempi di essiccazione determinano quella leggera trama che traspare sulla superficie. Su quei cavalletti ha cominciato a posizionare le tavole, di diverso formato, ciascuna preparata con una cornice diversa, alcune rastremate, altre a sbalzo, altre ancora sottili su un lato e più spesse sull’altro. Ai miei occhi sfuggiva il disegno complessivo. Così Spalletti ha iniziato a definire i primi colori, uno dopo l’altro, ed a stenderli, uno dopo l’altro. Quando prepara l’impasto di colore gli abiti non vengono toccati dalla vernice, i gesti sono meditati, il dosaggio è sapiente. I primi colori erano tenui, un rosa impalpabile, un azzurro acquatico, seguiva un rosso porpora, poi il grigio che “meglio di tutti gli altri colori riesce ad accogliere”, infine il bianco sull’idea verticale della colonna e sulla pietra di alabastro tinta solo per metà. I colori però non erano ancora leggibili, soltanto dopo l’abrasione, quando i pigmenti si rompono e si distribuiscono come polvere di colore sul quadro, il bianco del gesso contenuto nell’impasto li fa vibrare. Quando d’improvviso i colori si sono rivelati nel loro definitivo cromatismo, Spalletti mi ha guardato accennando un sorriso: “d’incanto l’incanto di aver trovato una foglia di acanto”. Sulle cornici andava poi ad adagiarsi il luccichio della foglia d’oro o la rotondità della pasta d’argento. Le tavole, distese, una di fianco all’altra, lasciavano già intuire la loro ragione, poi, una volta appoggiate sulla parete, una dietro l’altra, d’improvviso si sono manifestate in tutta la loro presenza. L’andamento delle cornici imprimeva il movimento, l’oro andava a riflettersi sul muro, il colore viaggiava su di esse. In quel momento, come in una apparizione, tutto si è svelato. Ciò che prima non riuscivo a cogliere era lì di fronte a me come un tutt’uno. E’ stato soltanto allora che Spalletti mi ha detto che il suo desiderio era quello di far correre i colori lungo le pareti della galleria “come a dipingere un solo quadro”. Azzurra Ricci Mostre personali sono state dedicate a Spalletti (Cappelle sul Tavo, 1940) da istituzioni prestigiose come Museum Folkwang, Essen (1982), Museum Van Hedendaagse, Gent (1983), Kunstverein, Monaco (1989), Portikus, Francoforte (1989), ARC, Parigi (1991), IVAM, Valencia (1992), Guggenheim Museum, New York (1993), MUHKA, Anversa (1995), Museo di Capodimonte, Napoli (1999), Musée de Strasbourg (1999), Fundaciòn La Caixa, Madrid (2000), Henry Moore Foundation, Leeds (2005), Villa Medici, Roma (2006), Museum Kurhaus Kleve (2009). Diverse le partecipazioni a mostre internazionali, tra cui Documenta VII (1982) e IX (1992), Kassel e la XL (1982), XLIV (1993), XLVI (1995), XLVII (1997) Biennale di Venezia. - One day I saw Spalletti arranging his easels in the studio in a different fashion. I asked him why. He replied that he was working on the exhibition for the Lia Rumma gallery in Naples. He wanted the space to be emptied and the floor to be washed. I observed him as he walked around the studio in search of light and shadow as if he was trying to find an image and then liberate himself from it the very next moment. The geometry of the studio gradually was decomposed by the regular edges of the easels. I felt that he had already defined a sequence although I still could not understand it. Spalletti prepared the paintings meticulously. The rear of the painting was covered because he does not like smudges. He paints with the canvas placed horizontally; he explains that in this way the paint can be spread on more evenly: “the paint is spread, it dries, thickens and settles”. The paint is applied to the canvases, almost at the same hour, for ten or fifteen days, until it reaches a thickness that makes it impossible to understand whether “the colour of the surface is moving towards the inner part of the painting or whether the inner part is moving towards the outside”. The drying times creates the slightly loose-textured effect that appears on the surface. He began to position the paintings on the easels. Each painting had a different format and was prepared with a different frame, some of them tapered, some embossed, others thin on one side and thick on the other. I was unable to grasp the overall design. So Spalletti began to define the first colours, one by one, and spread them on, one after the other. While he was preparing the paint, his clothes were not touched by the paint. The gestures were meditated and the quantities were carefully chosen. The first colours were delicate, a very light pink, a watery blue, followed by crimson, then grey which “manages to absorb more than all the other colours” and, lastly, the white on the vertical idea of the column and on the alabaster, which is only half-painted. However, the colours were still not intelligible; only after the abrasion, when the pigments break up and are distributed like powder paint on the painting, the white of the chalk contained in the mixture begin to make them resonate. When the paints suddenly became clear in their definitive chromatic sense, Spalletti looked at me with a half-smile and said, “d’incanto l’incanto di aver trovato una foglia di acanto” (as if by some enchantment, the enchanting discovery of finding an acanthus leaf). The glitter of the gold leaf or the rotundity of the silver substance settled on the frames. The paintings, arranged one beside the other, left the viewer to guess the meaning; then, once they had been placed on the wall, one behind the other, they suddenly manifested themselves with the entire force of their presence. The pattern of the frames determined the movement, the gold began to be reflected on the wall, the colour travelled on them. At that moment, as if in a vision, all was revealed. Everything that I had previously been unable to comprehend stood before me as a unified whole”. It was only then that Spalletti told me that his intention was to make the colours run along the walls of the gallery “like painting a single picture”. Azzurra Ricci
Galleria Lia Rumma Milano