Artist: Giulia Cenci
Exhibition title: fango
Venue: SpazioA, Pistoia, Italy
Date: September 12 – November 7, 2020
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and SpazioA, Pistoia
“There are pieces of this and pieces of that, but none of it fits together. And yet, very strangely, at the limit of all this chaos, everything begins to fuse again. A pulverized apple and a pulverized orange are finally the same thing, aren’t they? You can’t tell the difference between a good dress and a bad dress if they’re both turn to shreds, can you? At a certain point, things disintegrate into muck, or dust, or scraps, and what you have is something new, some particle or agglomeration of matter that cannot be identified. It is a clump, a mote, a fragment of the world that as no place: a cipher of it-ness”. ( Paul Auster, In the Country of Last Things )
SpazioA is proud to present, Saturday September 12, 2020, 6pm, a solo show by Giulia Cenci (1988, Cortona), entitled fango.The large installation made at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes during the 15th Lyons Biennial last September will be presented in the gallery for the first time in Italy.
fango consists of radical installations made out of sculptures and fragments of a manmade reality in an attempt to create a habitat guided by its own rules and dynamics.
Repetition and reproduction, fragmentation, aggregations of leftovers and hybrids of materials with their original sources provide references for intrusive and disproportionate sculptures that produce a dense and chaotic environment.
Upon entry, the installation immediately reveals the complexity of its materials: the sculptures’ proportions, and their relation with the viewer’s body, whose movements and points of view are guided and forced by the frequency of the elements in the space.
Parts of machines, engines, technological trappings, elements pulled from urban landscape are carefully mixed and modified by and with remnants of natural material like clay and dust to obtain uncertain, complex characteristics in which the sources forming the works are treated without a thought to their nature or value. Timeless techniques of modeling, sculpting, and shaping are jumbled together and soiled with today’s most sophisticated production processes and materials to create a new landscape that questions the state of belonging to any given time, state, or chemical compound.
Anthropomorphic figures (animals wearing human apparel in human poses) inhabit this landscape as still figures, often in conversation to each other or in rigid, contorted poses whose size and height in the space are always on human scale.
In this saturated habitat, the viewers’ bodies become part of the total view, a vital component of the work, their presences destined to become fragmented views embodied by this landscape themselves, additional matter in reaction with “the rest”.
Giulia Cenci (1988, Cortona, IT) graduated at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, IT (2007-2012), received a Master of Fine Arts at St.Joost Academy, Den Bosch-Breda, NL (2013-2015) and she took part in deAteliers residency, Amsterdam, NL (2015-2017). Selected solo shows: Da lontano era un’isola, curated by C. Rekade, Kunst Merano Arte, Merano, IT; ground ground, SpazioA, Pistoia, IT; a través, Carreras Mugica (Hall), Bilbao ES; Offspring 2017 – DEEP STATE, curated by L. Almarcegui and M. Hendriks, De Ateliers, Amsterdam, NL; Mai, Tile Project Space, Milano, IT. Group shows include: Shapeshifters, curated by Anna Johansson, Malmö Konstmuseum, Malmö; Metallo Urlante, Campoli-Presti, Parigi, FR;15th Lyon Biennale / Jeune création internationale, curated by Palais de Tokyo curatorial team, Institute of Contemporary Art, Villeurbanne/Rhône-Alpes, FR; Comrades of time, curated by Whatspace, Hardspace, Basel, CH; FutuRuins, curated by D. Ferretti, D. Ozerkov, con D. Dalla Lana, Palazzo Fortuny, Venezia, IT; That’s IT!, curated by L. Balbi, MAMBO, Bologna, IT; Figure di spago. Pratiche di narrazione, curated by Caterina Molteni, Fondazione Baruchello, Roma, IT; Hybrids, curated by C. Driessen & D. Jablonowski, Lustwarande, Platform for Contemporary Sculpture, park De Oude Warande, Tilburg NL; Sessile, curated by J. Minkus, Clifford Gallery, Colgate Univesity, Hamilton New York, USA; Disappointment Island, curated by Galeria Stereo, Griffin Art Space, Varsavia, PL; The Lasting. L’Intervallo e la Durata, curated by S. Cincinelli, GNAM, Roma, IT.
The artist has been recently awarded the Baloise Art Prize at Art Basel 2019 and she’s one of the shortlisted artist for the Maxxi Bulgari Prize 2020. She lives and work between Amsterdam and Tuscany.
Giulia Cenci, fango, 2020, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia
Giulia Cenci, fango, 2020, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia
Giulia Cenci, fango, 2020, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia
Giulia Cenci, fango, 2020, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia
Giulia Cenci, fango, 2020, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia
Giulia Cenci, fango, 2020, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia
Giulia Cenci, fango, 2020, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia
Giulia Cenci, fango, 2020, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia
Giulia Cenci, fango, 2020, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia
Giulia Cenci, fango, 2020, exhibition view, SpazioA, Pistoia
Giulia Cenci, her and selfsame, 2019, metal, car fragments, debris, wood, epoxy clay, beeswax, oil, cm 225 x 138 x 170
Giulia Cenci, her and self same same, 2019, metal, car fragments, debris, wood, epoxy clay, beeswax, oil, cm 320 x 130 x 270
Giulia Cenci, self and self same (booster), 2019, metal, urethan foam, silicon, discarded dusts and ashes, cm 100 x 40 x 80
Giulia Cenci, her and self samesamesame, 2019, metal, car fragments, debris, wood, epoxy clay,beeswax, oil, cm 160 x 95 x 30
Giulia Cenci, her and self samesamesame, 2019, metal, car fragments, debris, wood, epoxy clay, beeswax, oil, cm 235 x 80 x 70
Giulia Cenci, self and selfsame (half body), 2019, metal, urethan foam, silicon, discarded dusts and ashes, cm 170 x 56 x 50 – cm 85 x 35 x 50
Giulia Cenci, ditch, 2019, metal, car fragments, debris, wood, epoxy clay, beeswax, oil, cm 325 x 152 x 43
Giulia Cenci, ditch-ditch, 2019, metal, car fragments, debris, wood, epoxy clay, beeswax, oil, cm 290 x 210 x 240
Giulia Cenci, untitled, 2019, metal, car fragments, debris, wood, epoxy clay, beeswax, oil, cm 204 x 25 x 60
Giulia Cenci, exercises for a proper gait, 2019, metal, car fragments, debris, wood, epoxy clay, beeswax, oil, cm 212 x 150 x 80
Giulia Cenci, half body, 2019, metal, urethan foam, silicon, discarded dusts and ashes, cm 100 x 50 x 35
Giulia Cenci, her and slfsmslfsmslfsmslfsmslfsm, 2019, metal, car fragments, debris, wood, epoxy clay, beeswax, oil, cm 320 x 170 x 165
Giulia Cenci, her and slfsmslfsmslfsmslfsmslfsm, 2019, metal, car fragments, debris, wood, epoxy clay, beeswax, oil, cm 335 x 50 x 190