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5 April - 2 August 2009
Opening 4 April 2009 6.00-10.00 p.m.
On Saturday 4 April at 6 p.m. the Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary
Art opens its doors to the exhibition LORIS CECCHINI: DOTSANDLOOPS.
Curated by Marco Bazzini and Stefano Pezzato, this show claims
to be the most complete and detailed overview of the work of Loris
Cecchini. Arranged in close collaboration with the artist, the
exhibition follows a complex, intriguing route especially designed
by Cecchini and the curators for the exhibition rooms of the Pecci.
This extraordinary exposition, which represents the principal
phases in the artist's career, is characterized by environmental
works accompanied by an ample selection of photographs, sculptures
and installations dating from the mid-1990s to the present day.
Engaged from the very start in the investigation of the object
and of space, with this important one-man show Loris Cecchini
establishes himself as one of the artists most appreciated both
in Italy and abroad.
The display begins with a series of installations/environments,
or "exercises in architecture" which develop an idea of the environment
by altering the spectator's relationship with it. In this group
of works we find an enormous traversable volumetric grid that
takes after Density Spectrum Zone (2002-2004), installations created
by deforming and linking together PVC elements expanding into
the space. The viewing route follows the new version of Around
and Around, a schematic landscape modelled in three dimensions
on the computer and reproduced in perspective as a trompe l'œil
grid on the walls of a room, first created and presented as a
special project for the "Casa della musica - Sonar" of Colle Val
d'Elsa.
For Cecchini the conception and creation of "structures" takes
the form of a series of dwelling places and modules entitled Monologue
Patterns: Matrici (2003), consisting of sketches created digitally
and engraved on grey PVC surfaces, and Crisalide (Premio per la
giovane arte italiana, 2005), a sort of artificial greenhouse
intended as an area of interchange between natural organism and
transfigured architectural form. The Monologue Patterns series
also includes the Roulottes (2004-2007): object-environments transformed
into "vehicles of light" which project shadows of the network
or fretted modular grids which cover them, or else into transparent
places containing plants, books and other objects which the public
can handle.
The artist's direct relationship with space and his passion for
biological morphology is displayed in the expansion of bubbles
and the proliferation of organic, molecular or artificial forms
produced with metals or plastic materials. He creates the series
of extruded bodies in resin, which like skeletons (Morphic Resonance,
2004-2007) or familiar architectural features emerge from the
walls and take on the surreal appearance of windows, bookcases
and radiators (Gaps, 2004-2009), or else cling to the building
in the form of huge transparent balloons suspended in space (Blaublobbing,
2004-2009).
The route then continues with the photo-montages of his early
career in which, with the photography reworked on the computer,
Cecchini creates fictitious environments inhabited by real people,
transparent dwellings (No casting, 1997-1999), external views
using vivid colours, billowing morphologies of bubbles, transparent
involucres (Powderscape/Seedscape/Pigmentscape, 2005-2007), 3D
models of trees and photographs of icebergs reconstructed in the
studio with invented architectonic models (The painted distances,
2008 e Sliding constructions and drifting thoughts, 2008-2009).
Next we find the replication of objects, the elaboration of virtual
"models" obtained by manipulating analogical material which when
set beside the spatial scenes transfigure reality and destabilize
the way they are perceived. In the three-dimensional version offered
by the series Stage Evidence (1998-2007), the artist plays on
the idea of " eroding vision".
On the environmental scale, however, these virtual "models" acquire
a forcibly scenic impact by taking on a role of social denunciation
as in BBBreathless, a work presented at the 2001 Venice Biennale,
consisting of an isolation cell for death row prisoners, equipped
with a sophisticated aeration system which causes the rubber walls
to expand and contract as in a breathing body. The virtual "models"
continue with Empty walls - Just doors (2006), a series of repeated
rubber doors installed in such a way as to form a maze, as if
suspended between a sense of mystery and claustrophobia.
Belonging to the artist's most recent phase are the figurative
installations, works composed of thousands of polyethylene or
steel modules fluctuating in space like waves (Morphing Wave,
2005-2007), or suspended like clouds (Cloudless, 2005-2007) or
projecting into the environment like natural or mineral incrustations
(Steelorbitalcocoon, 2007-2009). Created by a laborious process
of design, manufacture and assembly, these installations display
a complex technical system, the basis of all Cecchini's work as
an artist. These works reveal his great curiosity about artificial
products and the techniques of manufacture, for the chemistry
and physics of the elements, together with his constant search
for direct experience with his materials associated with forms
of organic growth and cellular aggregation.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a new catalogue, containing
critical essays by Marco Bazzini and Lorand Hegyi, texts by the
artist himself and an exhaustive iconographical and bio-bibliographical
apparatus.
Download
the .zip file (1Mb) with the images of the exhibition
Exhibition promoted by: the Regione Toscana and the Comune
of Prato
With the contribution of: the Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di
Siena
With the support of: ASM Ambiente Mobilità Servizi spa, CariPrato
- Gruppo Banca Popolare di Vicenza, Gruppo Consiag, Unione Industriale
Pratese
Official Partner: Aeroporto di Firenze
Sponsor: Salvatore Ferragamo
Technical sponsor: Fly in balloons srl
Inauguration: 4 April 2009, 6 to 10 p.m.
Opening hours: 10 a.m. to 7 p.m., closed Tuesdays and Friday 1
May
Free guided tours: every Saturday and Sunday, 5 p.m.
Tickets: 5€, reduced 4€
At 5.00 p.m. the artist meets the visitors. Follows a free
tour of the exhibition
Loris Cecchini
Loris Cecchini was born in Milan in 1969. He now lives in Tuscany,
where he works in his studio in Prato. Of the Italian artists
who have come to the fore during the last decade, he is one of
the most appreciated at the international level.
He has had one-man shows in many galleries and museums, such as
the Centro Gallego de Arte Contemporaneo of Santiago de Compostela
(2000), the Fondazione Bandera at Busto Arsizio (2000), the Kunstverein
in Heidelberg (2001), the Fondazione Teseco in Pisa (2002), the
Museo Casal Solleric in Palma de Maiorca (2004), Quarter in Florence
(2004), the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2004, 2006 and 2007), the
Shanghai Duolun MoMA (2006), the PS1 in New York (2006).
He has taken part in numerous important collective exhibitions,
including the 13th Rome Quadrienale (1999), Video Virtuale - Foto
Fictionale at the Ludwig Museum in Cologne (1999), Futurama. Arte
in Italia 2000 at the Centro Pecci in Prato (2000), the Biennale
of Taiwan in Taipei (2000), the Biennale of Valencia (2001), la
49th Venice Biennale (2001), Arte all'Arte at Colle Val d'Elsa
(2001), Leggerezza at the Lenbachhaus Kunstbau Museum in Munich
(2001), Ouverture at the Palais de Tokyo in Paris (2002), De Gustibus
at the Palazzo delle Papesse in Siena (2002), Orizzonti at the
Forte Belvedere in Florence (2003), Le opere e i giorni at the
Certosa di Padula (2004), Object versus design at the Musée d'art
moderne St.Etienne Metropole (2004), Spazi atti at the PAC in
Milan (2004), Premio per la giovane arte italiana 2004-2005 -
Padiglione Venezia at the Venice Biennale (2005), the 12th Biennale
Internazionale di Scultura at Carrara (2006), la 6th Biennale
of Shanghai (2006), Artempo at Palazzo Fortuny in Venice (2007),
The Freak Show at the Musée d'Art Contemporain di Lyons (2007),
the 15th Rome Quadriennale (2008).
Loris
Cecchini interviewed on "Radio Papesse" (www.radiopapesse.org)
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