Artist: Fion Pellacini
Exhibition title: I can see you through the cobogó
Curated by: Eva Birkenstock
Venue: Jürgen Becker Galerie, Hamburg, Germany
Date: October 28 – November 7, 2021
Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Jürgen Becker Galerie, Hamburg
I can see you through the cobogó
What do you see?
I see your shoes and your socks
Then how do you know it’s me?
Hidden within cobogós and between transparent walls, the works in Fion Pellacini’s exhibition are often small and temporary companions, made of soap and concrete. With I can see you through the cobogó the artist draws a world between unity and separation, distance and the longing to bridge it. Through found objects, pieces of architecture and melting materials, he reflects his heterogenous family histories between Germany, Brazil and Italy, the hope of the grand parent generation and the spirited left overs of modernist ideas confronted with the challenges of the present.
From around the time of the early 1960s, when Pellacini’s grand parents transformed their São Paulo home to fit the modernist ideals, a new type of “vernacular” version of Modernismo happened throughout the entire country. The accessibility and simple production of striking building elements such as façade tiles or the semi-permeable building blocks called “cobogó” played an important role in this. However, the cobogós in Fion Pellacini’s exhibition are not made of concrete as usual, but of soap, two materials that could hardly be more opposite: While soap touching water dissolves between hands, concrete needs the water to become a mass and finally harden. Soap is a material of intimacy and interior space – a companion in the transit from exterior to interior – while concrete is a classic outdoor material. Soap is flexible, concrete is brittle. Soap unfolds its function in dissolution, concrete becomes useful by hardening. Pellacini’s soap and concrete casts contain „connectors“ such as padlocks, latches, and angles, elements of vegetation and the built, nails, newspapers, and materials of an electrician. They also carry a series of swirled photographs from historical and private contexts. The materials for the works are largely recycled, from remnants of a renovation and a business liquidation. The molds themselves are largely sourced from a specialized store in Brasilândia, São Paulo.
Through drawing, painting, sculpture and a new video piece made in collaboration with artist Claudia Medeiros Cardoso, filmed on a construction site on the last floor of Edifício Copan, and in a security sluice of a gated apartment building, Pellacini opens the door between the past and the present and embraces the unspeakable. Like many of the elements in the exhibition, the distorted craftsman in Pellacini’s large scale painting “I got the Iroshizuku in Liberdade” (2021) is animated by a swirling energy, like the tilde on São Paulo or the curve of the Copan.
Text by: Rebekka Seubert
Fion Pellacini (b. 1986) is an artist and musician of german-brasilian-italian nationality. He currently lives and works between Hamburg, São Paulo and Dortmund.
The catalogue „Access Denied/Access Granted“ is published alongside the exhibition, with a preface by Eva Birkenstock, an introduction by Max Jorge Hinderer Cruz and an essay by Fion Pellacini. (Ed. Eva Birkenstock & Neue Kunst in Hamburg, Textem Verlag, 2021).
Fion Pellacini: Multitool, 2021, soap, various materials, Detail view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
I can see you through the cobogó, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021, Photo: Fred Dott
Fion Pellacini: I can see you through the cobogó, 2021, acrylic on wood, wire, key chains, Detail view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: I can see you through the cobogó, 2021, acrylic on wood, wire, key chains, Detail view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: I can see you through the cobogó, 2021, acrylic on wood, wire, key chains, Detail view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Installation view I can see you through the cobogó, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021, Photo: Fred Dott
Fion Pellacini: Telescope/Periscope, 2021, soap, various materials, Detail view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Dr. Hirota, 2021, soap, various materials, Detail view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Installation view I can see you through the cobogó, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021, Photo: Fred Dott
Fion Pellacini: Cobogó 1-3, 2021, soap, various materials, Detail view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Installation view I can see you through the cobogó, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021, Photo: Fred Dott
Fion Pellacini: I got the Iroshizuku in Liberdade, 2021, japanese ink on paper, wood, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Untitled, 2021, soap, various materials, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: I got a feeling in my brow (left), 2021, Acrylic on wood, Acrylic glass, key chains, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: I got a feeling in my brow (left), 2021, Acrylic on wood, Acrylic glass, key chains, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: I got a feeling in my brow (left), 2021, Acrylic on wood, Acrylic glass, key chains, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: I got a feeling in my brow (right), 2021, Acrylic on wood, Acrylic glass, moss, key chains, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: I got a feeling in my brow (right), 2021, Acrylic on wood, Acrylic glass, moss, key chains, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Hinge 1, 2021, soap, various materials, Detail view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Hermetic Order Of The Golden Dawn, 2021, soap, various materials, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Untitled, 2021, soap, various materials, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Installation view I can see you through the cobogó, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021, Photo: Fred Dott
Installation view (Detail) I can see you through the cobogó, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Installation view (Detail) I can see you through the cobogó, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Installation view (Detail) I can see you through the cobogó, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Installation view (Detail) I can see you through the cobogó, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Don’t worry, water is rare now, 2021, soap, various materials, LED lights, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Anyone (who knows what love is), 2021, video, 12’23’’, sound, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Hinge 1, 2021, soap, various materials, Detail view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Don’t worry, water is rare now, 2021, soap, various materials, LED lights, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Installation view I can see you through the cobogó, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021, Photo: Fred Dott
Fion Pellacini: Forme uniche della continuità nello spazio (x-rayed), 2021, soap, various materials, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Nas Alturas, 2021, soap, various materials, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
Fion Pellacini: Night Light Sensor, 2021, soap, various materials, Installation view, Jürgen Becker Galerie, Courtesy: The artist, Neue Kunst in Hamburg, 2021
