exhibition views at Rita Urso artopiagallery, Milan
December 13 - February 8, 2019
Photos by Natalia Trejbalova
Although with different formal intentions and outcomes, first of all, both artists share a deep interest in material – in its most concrete sense. The very title of the exhibition, ‘Restless’, alludes to the irreducible restlessness of substance: those who work with materials become the vehicle of an incessant state and form transformation, as if to continually renew the natural drive of the elements that, finally, take the form of an artwork. Each one interprets this attitude in a very personal way, having a different way of “looking” at the act of making art.
Linda Carrara (Bergamo, 1984) explores the potential of painting and drawing on different surfaces, questioning the limits of two-dimensionality to create marble ‘illusions’. Marble’s texture is perfectly reproduced in her series of graphite drawings, as can be seen in the exhibition, or in her almost gestural pictorial technique, made of veiled layers, which transforms material to emulate the natural metamorphosis of stone. The interpenetration between wood and ‘marble’ creates a short-circuit in the eye of the spectator, generating a visual and intellectual growth in which matter is the protagonist. A similar operation is found in her stones drawn on small tables: the figure seems to float in space, creating in the viewer the idea of a spatial consistency that doesn’t exist. Even her painting on canvas - in which echoes of the modern and contemporary European tradition are found - is dedicated to a careful mimicry, which reproduces plant elements on monochromatic backgrounds. The frame is significantly mounted on small supports on the ground: in her explorations between two-dimension and three-dimension, Carrara focuses on the space surrounding the work, sometimes invading it and immediately moving the painting to the limit of the sculptural installation. This attitude to explore the boundary between different dimensions can be found in the wall sculptures by Francesco Snote (Biella, 1991): on gallery’s lower floor, the artist presents a large triptych, in which the plaster creates a continuous gap between volume and surface. As a background for these three elements, a metal grid poses perspective lines: Snote explores a form of ‘looking at’ art that recovers a large part of the romantic attitude in front of the sublime. In his works, the polarity between viewer and work creates - and goes beyond - a threshold that is not only between two different parts of the world, but between two whole different worlds. The same idea is found in the sculpture proposed on the upper floor, together with a series of unpublished drawings in which the human figure, seen from behind, faces an ‘other’ dimension - never completely attainable. An attitude that seems almost titanism, as Michele Bertolino observes in the critical text dedicated to him. So if for Linda Carrara the act of looking is a ‘close up’ look, almost microscopic in the meticulous gesture of bringing the detail back to the surface, for Snote, in reverse, the view takes on the immense breath of the gaze turned into infinity, from human towards the cosmic. And it is in each of these two gestures, complementary and opposite, that lays the act of making art.
Linda Carrara
Linda Carrara (Bergamo, 1984. Lives and works in Brussels and Milan) since 2010 participates in numerous solo and group exhibitions, both in private galleries and institutional spaces. Palazzo delle Stelline in Milan, Palazzo Tè in Mantua, the Institute of French Culture in Milan, MAC Museum in Lissone, Museo della Permanente in Milan and Croxhapox, Center of Contemporary Art in Ghent and FABRIKA in Moscow, are some of the places where she has exhibited her work. In 2013 she was invited to the Cairo Award, and in 2014 she won the Terna Prize for painting. Some art residences involved her work, such as MOMENTUM Berlin (2015), LKV-Trondheim, Norway (2016), NCCA Saint Petersburg (2017), and Musumeci Contemporary, Brussels (2017).
In 2018, she has a personal exhibition “A / R” at the Institute of Italian Culture in Brussels.
Francesco Snote
Francesco Snote (Biella, 1991. Lives and works in Turin) studied at the Albertina Academy of Fine Arts in Turin. He is a co-founder of the Spaziobuonasera project (Turin). He has participated in solo and group exhibitions including: “ALLENAMENTO # 01”, Basis Frankfurt (2018); “Space is not blue and birds do not fly in”, edited by Lisa Andreani, Edicola Radetzky, Milan (2018); “I never asked to be your mountain”, curated by Valentina Lacinio, LocaleDue, Bologna (2017); “Teatrum Botanicum”, PAV, Turin (2016); “Texture and Liquidity”, The Workbench International, Milan (2016); “SENDRE”, Spaziobuonasera, Turin (2016); “Errflage”, Via Carlo Ignazio Giulio, Turin (2015).