I love the gallery
20th anniversary exhibition
by Maja Bajevic | Phil Collins | Martina della Valle | Paola Gaggiotti
Jean-Baptiste Maitre | Elizabeth McAlpine | Marzia Migliora | Margherita Morgantin
Adrian Paci | Jelena Tomašević | Enzo Umbaca | ZAPRUDER filmmakersgroup
ON VIEW AT THE NEW SPACE IN RITA URSO ARTOPIA GALLERY'S COURTYARD
MARCH 4 - APRIL 30, 2021
The exhibition celebrates the 20th anniversary of the gallery's activity, from its beginnings in 2001 to the most recent years, through a wide selection of works from its collection. These are organised into three main areas. The first two deal with a fundamental issue in the history of the gallery: the connection between the private and the public. Artopia for its architectural proximity to the home of the gallerist was born under an indissoluble union between intimacy and profession, subverting the stereotype of the white cube with site-specific projects that cross over into the home. Here, this concept is examined in the works by both Italian and Balkan artists. Conversely, the third part takes on a new perspective by looking towards the future of the gallery, which will be focused on different artistic means, such as film or design.
The works are organised in a collateral space, once a workshop dating back to the XIX century, and destined to take a new form in the future.
The title is inspired by the video I love the gallerists and they love me (2001) by Adrian Paci, shown in his first solo exhibition in Milan curated by Edi Muka. In the work, featuring Rita and Remo Urso, the artist's hands interfere to sort of arrange the gallerists’ positions and faces. A refined metaphor for the transformative power of art on the human soul, the video is a significative representation of the evolution of an art gallery as life path and act of love towards a profession.
"Entering the home of a stranger, enter the lives of others: sst!! Try not to disturb, get ready to listen. A discipline of presence, acknowledging the importance of the threshold, the passage, the things that regulate the life of a place. An instinctive reaction to an exhibition space that borders on domestic space intertwining the supposed modern neutrality demanded of artspaces with traces of life"
Esercizi di discrezione con riserva by Emanuela De Cecco
In punta di piedi by Marzia Migliora, curated by Emanuela De Cecco, inaugurating Artopia gallery
Marzia Migliora, 59 passi, 2001, video 3 min., 5 copies + 2 p.a.
Volare è piuttosto naturale by Paola Gaggiotti, curated by Emanuela De Cecco
Paola Gaggiotti, Autoritratto al lavoro, 2001, print on tracing paper, 21x29,7 cm
Osservare le norme di sicurezza by Margherita Morgantin, curated by Emanuela De Cecco
Margherita Morgantin, Areare il locale in caso di incertezze, 2001, lambda print, 100x70 cm
Iuol never uolc alone
by Enzo Umbaca, curated by Emanuela De Cecco
Enzo Umbaca, Iuol never uolc alone, 2002, lambda print, 100x70 cm
Martina della Valle by Martina della Valle
Martina della Valle, Ombre, 2006, encad print on plexiglass, 50x70 cm
Green, green grass of home
by Maja Bajevic, curated by Edi Muka
Maja Bajevic, Tresses, 2001, photography, 100x70 cm
"Uprooting, loss of home, living in-between two times and two places without being able to be at any of them, living through the Trauma... This is what one of the most traumatised territories of the last decade of the XX century, Bosnia and Herzegovina has offered on the stage of the Grand Spectacle of humanity, where everyone of us has been a passive/active spectator."
Parafrasare il Trauma by Edi Muka
Becoming more like us
by Phil Collins, curated by Edi Muka
Just Kidding
by Jelena Tomašević, curated by Gabriella Serusi
Jelena Tomašević, Just Kidding, 2007, mixed technique on steel, 100x80 cm
Phil Collins, Ivan, mobil phone dealer, 17, 2002, lambda print on aluminum, 75x91 cm, 4 copies
Phil Collins, Vanja, still giving up giving up, 2002, lambda print on aluminum, 75x91 cm, 4 copies
cinematic sediments
by Elizabeth McAlpine, text by Denis Viva
"Depth and length can be posited as two apparatuses of time. Photosensitive film is capable of both dispositions. It establishes its own special dialectic with time. Its potential is so broad that it is not limited to cinema and photography. Film can transcend cinema and photography as they are conventionally defined. The medium cannot be exhausted only in the means [and its physical characteristics], but it also inhabits a complex and extended practice that becomes a device."
Filmic Geology by Denis Diva
Elizabeth McAlpine, Ends (Horizon), 2015, C-Type print, 85 x 120 cm, 100 x 145 x 6 cm (framed)
Fluid Carrying the Hopes of Ships in Distress
by Jean-Baptiste Maitre
Jean-Baptiste Maitre, Le diable derrière la porte, 2016, acrylic, inkjet, artist medium on folded paper, marker, mounted on wood, 178x42 cm
Artissima fair 2017 (section Dialogue), works by ZAPRUDER filmmakersgroup
ZAPRUDER filmmakersgroup, Studio sulla visione non binoculare | Scena di caccia, 2017, photographic print, 130x110 cm
Home sweet home
by Adrian Paci, curated by Edi Muka
Adrian Paci, I love the gallerists and they love me, 2001, video DV 5 min., 3 copies
"A sense of care and shared responsibility is what undergoes the entire gesture and interaction between the artist and his subjects. The artist is metaphorically placing “the viewer” at the other end, that of the viewed. An urge for communication, an exchange of intimate spaces, not only between artist and gallerists, but also as a public dominion to be shared by everybody."
Happy people by Edi Muka
