Artist: Andreia Santana
Exhibition title: Hollow Hands
Curated by: UNA
Venue: Spazio Leonardo, Milan, Italy
Date: February 19 – May 8, 2020
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist, UNA and Spazio Leonardo
UNA is pleased to announce the third year of its collaboration with Spazio Leonardo, multifunctional space and insurance agency of Leonardo Assicurazioni – Generali Milano Liberazione, inaugurated in 2018 and located in the newly redeveloped building The Corner in Milano Porta Nuova.
Spazio Leonardo is conceived as a space where dialogue and exchange collide within and for the city, a container of culture, creativity and innovation.
Following two years of fruitful collaboration, Spazio Leonardo entrusts once again the artistic direction of its gallery to UNA highlighting its perspective of openness and interdisciplinarity. UNA will curate three solo exhibitions by emerging artists who will present a site-specific project : Andreia Santana (February – May 2020); KIM 1995 (in collaboration with Castiglioni Fine Arts, May – September 2020); Francesco De Prezzo (October 2020 – January 2021).
The work of Andreia Santana (1991, Lisbon) is developed around an on-going investigation about the relationship between archaeology and art making. She observes and appropriates specific techniques in order to analyze the contemporary production of material culture and discussing topics like the labor and the capacity of objects to act as witnesses of time changes .
Hollow Hands, the artist’s first solo exhibition in Italy, arises from her recent interest in outcast manufactures, archaeological found objects that were marginalized or banned from history by the regime of power and cultural interest, and to which were not given the status of museum artifacts. For this exhibition, Santana presents a new body of sculptures in steel and copper, whose shapes resemble parts of human body, archaeological findings and tools. Her works are developed through a research on the alienation and the agency of the archaeological labor and its conditions over the history.
These sculptures are conceived as “maamutant elements” which perform different periods of time (past, present and future) and aim to give voice and space to alternative contributions to the great narratives (History, Archaeology, Archive), raising a counter-discursive power and new historiographies.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a catalogue with a curatorial text written by Sofia Lemos.
Andreia Santana(1991, Lisbon), lives and works between Lisbon and New York. Andreia holds a BA degree in Fine Arts in ESAD – School of Arts and Design of Caldas da Rainha and participated in the Independent Study Program in Visual Arts from Maumaus/Lumiar Cité in Lisbon. Exhibiting her work regularly in Portugal and abroad, we highlight the exhibitions: The Outcast Manufacturers, Galeria Filomena Soares, Lisbon (2018); 10 years 10 artists, 10 commissions. António Cachola Collection, Chiado 8, Lisbon (2018); 10000 years after between Vénus and Mars. Cur. João Laia at Galeria Municipal do Porto (2017); Leaves of Absence at Serralves Museum of Contemporary Art, Porto (2017); New Skin, Old Stone at Old School, cur. by Susana Pomba, Lisbon (2017); The Lobster Loop at MONITOR Gallery, Lisbon (2017) Pousio / Fallow (screening) – Fuso, at MAAT – Museum of Art, Architecture and Technology, Lisbon (2016). She won the NOVO BANCO Revelação Prize in 2016 and the Sculpture Prize D. Fernando II and in 2019 she was among the finalist artists of the Ducato Prize (Catell’Arquato, Piacenza). Since 2013, she has participated in several artistic residency programs, such as the Residency Unlimited in New York with a fellowship from Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation.
Andreia Santana, Hollow Hands, installation view at Spazio Leonardo, Milano 2020, Ph. credit Cosimo Filippini, Courtesy UNA and the artist
Andreia Santana, Hollow Hands, installation view at Spazio Leonardo, Milano 2020, Ph. credit Cosimo Filippini, Courtesy UNA and the artist
Andreia Santana, Hollow Hands, installation view at Spazio Leonardo, Milano 2020, Ph. credit Cosimo Filippini, Courtesy UNA and the artist
Andreia Santana, Mask, cm 166 x 119 x 30, painted steel, 2020, Ph. credit Cosimo Filippini, Courtesy UNA and the artist
Andreia Santana, Study for stammering tool, cm 36 x 35,5 x 8, painted steel, 2018, Ph. credit Cosimo Filippini, Courtesy UNA and the artist
Andreia Santana, Aphasia, cm 200 x 150, painted steel, 2018, Ph. credit Cosimo Filippini, Courtesy UNA and the artist
Andreia Santana, Agnosia, cm 46 x 92 x 42, painted steel, 2018, Ph. credit Cosimo Filippini, Courtesy UNA and the artist
Andreia Santana, Vessel #2, cm 85 x 83, copper, 2020, Ph. credit Cosimo Filippini, Courtesy UNA and the artist
Andreia Santana, Vessel #3, cm 122 x 83, copper, 2020, Ph. credit Cosimo Filippini, Courtesy UNA and the artist