Collector’s Choice at Eduardo Secci Contemporary

Artists: Luca Pozzi, Martin Lukac, Ricardo Passaporte, Kristian Touborg

Exhibition title: Collector’s Choice

Curated by: Claus Busch Risvig

Venue: Eduardo Secci Contemporary, Florence, Italy

Date: July 5 – August 11, 2018

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artists and Eduardo Secci Contemporary

Eduardo Secci Contemporary is pleased to present the exhibition “Collector’s Choice,” curated by Art Collector Claus Busch Risvig, consisting of the works by Luca Pozzi, Martin Lukac, Ricardo Passaporte and Kristian Touborg. The collective exhibit will feature the works by these four international artists and will be inaugurated at the gallery’s headquarters, in Piazza Goldoni 2, Florence, on July 5th, 2018, at 6 pm.

This show, the last one scheduled for the gallery’s summer season, will be the first of a series where international art collectors will be invited to showcase a selection of artists from their private collection who are most meaningful to them. This way, the collector takes over the role of the curator, and becomes an active participant in the exhibition. The gallery is looking to explore new paths, and wishes to make the general public aware of the new roles that are emerging in the arts world, always more oriented towards the promotion of young and very young authors. And it’s precisely to support the work of new artists that collectors, who are in close contact with them through the art market and, even more, thanks to the new Internet and social media platforms, become precious points of reference not just for galleries but also, and mostly, for artists. Since the 80s, there have been a thriving number of virtuous collectors who pay close attention to novelties, are receptive to new artistic languages and are capable of polarizing the attention on the artists they collect. Recalling a few prestigious examples, we mention Charles Saatchi, who had a prominent role in the formation of the Young British Artists, or, more recently, key figures of contemporary patronage and collecting, such as Patrizia Sandretto Re Rebaudengo or the duo Bertelli & Prada.

All four artists showcased in the exhibit, grapple with a direct confrontation with the idea of the image in the contemporary, each through their personal and recognizable language, and search it by making it emerge from an everyday context, isolating it, manipulating it, analyzing it, reducing it to a matrix, and, finally, even evaluating its possibility of surviving in a world overloaded and overexcited by constant and relentless visual stimuli. The artists, all born in the 80s, are direct witnesses of the deep and incontrovertible social changes caused so much by the most recent scientific, technological and digital discoveries, as by the overwhelming subjugation to a capitalist and commercial aesthetic that has contributed to alter the perception humans have today of the image. The image is recurring in the works by the artists as a mark, as their signature: it is repeated, denied or sublimated. The exhibition is presented as a conscious choice, capable of offering a glimpse into the languages of these four artists, set in an unprecedented juxtaposition as to suggest some reflections on their use of the image (in its figurative meanings, and not) in the contemporary era.

Space-time has always been a main theme of interest for Luca Pozzi (1983, Italy). Past, present and future are indistinguishable. One, single dimension, fluid and all-inclusive, emerges from the direct confrontation with his hybrid installations, conceived by their author as painting devices suspended in space and time. His “Detectors,” taking advantage of the ping-pong metaphor, represent the bundle of particles captured right before a hypothetical collision inside the LHC detector.

The works by Martin Lukac (1989, Slovakia) feed off of recurrent motifs that he freely draws from crests, political images or pop- culture icons from the 90s. Once he identifies a motif that captures his attention, he extrapolates it from its context, repeats it multiple times, even within the borders of the same canvas, until it’s completely exhausted, and in most cases ends up with actual abstractions that reveal the true nature of his artistic research.

Immediate, direct and mundane, are just some of the most efficient adjectives to define the paintings and the installations by Ricardo Passaporte (1987, Portugal). He is a careful interpret of the communicative power inherent in logos of large multinationals. The font and colors of these brands undergo a process, in which they are revisited, broken down or duplicated. After appropriating himself of such icons, and transmitting their social and cultural value, not without a subtle background irony, Passaporte ends by giving form to a seductive, contemporary symbolism.

Technical reproduction and reconstruction are the predominant languages adopted in his artworks by Kristian Touborg (1987, Denmark). He attempts to overcome the concept of the white canvas, constructing assemblies of Dadaist perception, as a result of the tactile and optical experiences that the artist gathers in his daily life, and repurposes them in the form of manual or digital reproductions. His works feed on the collection of images, which become representations of simultaneous experiences.

Collector’s Choice, 2018, exhibition view, Eduardo Secci Contemporary, Florence

Martin Lukac, Untitled (SPZM), 2018, acrylic on cotton, 180 x 145 cm

Martin Lukac, Untitled (small), 2018, acrylic on cotton, 90 x 70 cm

Martin Lukac, Untitled (L), 2018, Acrylic on cotton, 145 x 180 cm

Ricardo Passaporte, Untitled, 2018, Acrylic on canvas, 200 x 170 cm

Ricardo Passaporte, Untitled, 2018, Acrylic on canvas, 150 x 120 cm

Kristian Touborg, Summer Night Plasticity (Excessive Impressionism) VII, 2018, Digital polyester print sewn on canvas with pigments, ink and oil pastel, 215 x 320 cm

Kristian Touborg, Summer Night Plasticity (Excessive Impressionism) VI, 2018, Digital polyester print sewn on canvas with pigments, ink and oil pastel, 208 x 152 cm

Luca Pozzi, Cristalli Fior di Loto su Tatami, 2018, Martial art tatami, black crystals, electromagnetic fields, luminescent sponges, 73 x 77 cm

Luca Pozzi, Detector, 2018, Anodized aluminium,ping pong balls,wire ,magnets, 175 x 175 x 25 cm