Artist: Clément Mancini
Exhibition title: Turnover
Curated by: Domenico de Chirico
Venue: Contemporary Cluster, Rome, Italy
Date: September 22 – October 22, 2022
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Contemporary Cluster, Rome
„As for me, they kindle a fire; through them I breathe again, hold a golden cord, find my own revelation.“ — Clyfford Still, As quoted in Abstract Expressionism, Davind Anfam, Thames and Hudson Ltd London, 1990.
Contemporary Cluster [Collective Intelligence] presents on 22 September 2022, Turnover, a solo exhibition by Clément Mancini curated by Domenico de Chirico.
The quest of the very young French artist Clément Mancini, born in 1988, influenced by a modernist graffiti style and characterized by the vivid chromatic musicality typical of abstract expressionism, from Robert Motherwell to Joan Mitchell, passing through Helen Frankenthaler and Clyfford Still, is constantly in line with the perpetual socio-cultural changes and the rapid and constant growth of urbanization. Superimpositions, juxtapositions, composition balance, colors, materials, and free gestures considerably contribute to fortify Mancini’s study of the systems of representation of concrete space, constituted solely by the canvas, which is considered as the sole and undisputed field of action, in which anything can happen. What follows are original pictorial compositions, subjective and autonomous, inspired by the vibrations he gets from the cities he visits and from everything that usually surrounds him in everyday life.
According to these premises, Turnover, second solo show in Italy and first exhibition in Rome by Clément Mancini, hosted in the extraordinary exhibition spaces of Contemporary Cluster inside Palazzo Brancaccio, focuses on a series of unpublished works that visibly investigate the line and color. For this exhibition Mancini has chosen to return fully to what is the basis of his work, that is to painting on canvas, understood in its purest sense.
Therefore, «Turnover» is both the renewal as a consequence of a desired return to the origins of his artistic practice and the repetition of a cycle that presumably will accompany him throughout his career. Mancini starts from the canvas and lets himself be guided by the immediacy of the gesture that becomes almost alipede: creative impulse that can generate errors, cancellations and recoveries. Making mistakes, erasing, starting over are actions that nourish his work and inspire him daily: crackling paint, rusty iron and impoverished posters, all this feeds his repertoire of textures, colors and involuntary compositions, unequivocally unique.
There are no preparatory sketches as priority is given to spontaneity, choosing consciously to face the white support to be able to push towards the most intricate plots that characterize the unknown. Fascinated by the sensuality of matter and pervaded by the power of expression of the subconscious and the image, Clément Mancini does not want to reach a specific point or a set goal, he seeks only to achieve balance in all his compositions and to express himself through them; he does not seek to convey particular messages through the composition of his works and he likes that people can interpret these very elegant, unrepeatable and vivid pictorial proscenes to their liking, based on their visions or pandering to their moods. All this represents moments of real life lived with spontaneity and sincerity. This is how the painting speaks only of itself, telling its story, since it constitutes, moreover, an extension of the inner reality of the artist himself, without ever excluding indelible traces and stains of time that characterize him solerti.
Text by Domenico de Chirico
The exhibition will be accompanied by furnishing accessories by Temper, a design brand with an artisanal and contemporary taste. Mixing decades of experience in iron processing with the ability of experienced designers, Temper guarantees high quality standards in terms of materials, finishes and technical implementation. Temper believes in the value of the unique piece, so their products are entirely handmade with great care and attention to the final result. The quality of the materials blends with the production methods and techniques resulting in products characterized by an eccentric aesthetic that satisfies the needs of new domestic spaces.
