↳ Exhibitions

Namsal Siedlecki at Magazzino

July 3, 2019

Artist: Namsal Siedlecki

Exhibition title: A

Venue: Magazzino, Rome, Italy

Date: May 15 – July 15, 2019

Photography: all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and Magazzino, Rome

Magazzino is happy to announce A, the first solo exhibition by Namsal Siedlecki with the gallery. The exhibition which will open on Wednesday the 15^th May 2019 will last until July 15^th, 2019.

Siedlecki has decided to elaborate a dual approach, linking two separate trajectories, both having as a common theme desire and its fulfilment. On one hand, the artist has gathered approximately one-hundred thirty thousand coins among those that are collected daily from the Trevi Fountain, which for several reasons (counterfeit coins, coins with no or very low exchange values and damaged or defaced coins) cannot be exchanged and are simply stored. Medals, tokens, carved or modified coins represent for Siedlecki, desires lost in a sort of limbo, waiting to be fulfilled.

In this same limbo, we can imagine the votive figures discovered in Clermont-Ferrand (in the French region of Auvergne) during archeological excavations, in a Gallic era well, carried out in the Sixties. These votive figures carved in beech wood, similar to modern ones represent parts of the human body, very often representing a hand holding a spherical object (a stone, a coin) as a wish for prosperity and fertility. The artist has appropriated these figures, scanning them in 3D and creating from them wax moulds, which will be then processed over a long period in a galvanic bath, progressively hiding their original features and connotations and deforming the original shape. As in his recent series Gandhãra shown in Berlin, Siedlecki aims to reflect, through this deformation of the galvanic process, the idea of time and sedimentation: the tank used for the galvanization is a yet another vessel, like the fountain or the well, where time acts directly on the objects and modifies them, confounding and erasing their original contours.

The performative and choral transformation of the individual elements that form the conceptual humus of the entire exhibition, is perhaps the primary aspect of the processual nature of the installation in the gallery. From this perspective, the coins assume different shapes, even becoming supports for the galvanized sculptural fragments. On some, the idea of time will be evident as a stratification and deformation; while others will become actors in the transformation and used as anodes in the galvanic tank which, during the entire duration of the exhibition, will act on the works condensing time in a physical copper residue on the surface of the sculptures. The result will be a continuous transformation of space between raw forms and finished objects, the accumulation, variation and layout of the individual elements.

The exhibition will be accompanied by a critical essay by Ilaria Gianni, art critic and curator based in Rome.

Namsal Siedlecki was born in 1986, Greenfield, USA – he lives and works in Seggiano, Italy. In 2015, he won the 4th edition of the Premio Moroso and was appointed the Cy Twombly Italian Affiliated Fellowship in Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome. He has recently exhibited his works in several institutions, among them: Villa Medici, Rome, 2019; Chertlüdde, Berlin, 2019; 6th Moscow Biennale for Young Art, Moscow, 2018; Fondazione SmArt, Rome, 2018; Galeria Boavista, Lisbon, 2017; Galeria Madragoa, Lisbon, 2017; American Academy in Rome, 2016; Villa Romana, Florence, 2016; Frankfurt am Main, Berlin, 2016; Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci, Prato, 2015; Antinori Art Project, Bargino, 2015; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin, 2014; Museo Apparente, Naples, 2014; Fondazione Pastificio Cerere, Rome, 2013; Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice, 2012; Cripta747, Turin, 2013. From 2008 to 2013 he ran the independent space GUM Studio, first in Carrara and then in Turin.

Namsal Siedlecki, A, 2019, exhibition view, Magazzino, Rome, Courtesy Magazzino

Namsal Siedlecki, Trevis Maponos, 2019, Wax, iron, coins, Various dimensions, Installation View, Courtesy Magazzino

Namsal Siedlecki, A, 2019, exhibition view, Magazzino, Rome, Courtesy Magazzino

Namsal Siedlecki, Them (1466), 2019, Brass, Ø 23 x 3 cm, Courtesy Magazzino

Namsal Siedlecki, A, 2019, exhibition view, Magazzino, Rome, Courtesy Magazzino

Namsal Siedlecki, Trevis, 2019, Metacrylate vessel, brass, electric motor, electronic unit, wires, copper anodes, copper plating acid solution (300l), copper sculpture, wax, coins, Dimensions variable, Courtesy Magazzino