↳ Exhibitions

Riccardo Giacconi at UNA

January 29, 2020

Artist: Riccardo Giacconi

Exhibition title: Ecfrasi

Curated by: UNA

Venue: UNA, Piacenza, Italy

Date: November 23, 2019 – February 29, 2020

Photography: Marco fava / all images copyright and courtesy of the artist and UNA, Piacenza

UNA is delighted to present Ecfrasi, a solo show by Riccardo Giacconi (*1985, San Severino Marche, MC).

The exhibition presents an immersive installation featuring various moments of Riccardo’s recent research: excerpts from his film dedicated to Italian singer-songwriter Alberto Camerini, wooden handmade masks carved by craftsmen from Barbagia (central Sardinia); a series of stage costumes, three plastic curtains inspired by oriental folding screens.

These works suggest a possible resonance between the artistic career of Camerini and the so-called “riflusso”: a general resignation to the private sphere and a concomitant political and social disengagement that characterized the transition from the 70s to the 80s in Italy. The installation evokes the various personae embodied by the singer-songwriter – a Harlequin, a cyber-punker, a robot.

The artworks are arranged in the exhibition space as props and backdrops, before or after a performance. The bright colourful costumes conceal unexpected cuts and pleats; the masks, pockmarked and carved in a wood devastated by insects, reveal an abiding interest in bodily deformations and constrictions.

Ecfrasi [Ekphrasis: description of an image] is an exhibition about the attempt to inhabit an other body, which has been constructed through make-up and disguises, symbols and gestures.

The exhibition is accompanied by a text by Valentina Lacinio.

The masks have been realized in collaboration with Gonario Denti, Franco Maritato, Ruggero Mameli.

Riccardo Giacconi (1985, San Severino Marche, Italy) lives and works in Milan. Giacconi studied fine arts at the University IUAV of Venezia, and he obtained a PhD from the PhDArts program of Leiden University. His work has been exhibited in various institutions, such as Grazer Kunstverein (Graz), ar/ge kunst (Bozen/Bolzano), FRAC Champagne-Ardenne (Reims), MAC (Belfast), WUK Kunsthalle Exnergasse (Vienna), MAMbo (Bologna), and Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo (Turin). He was artist-in-residence at Künstlerhaus Büchsenhausen (Innsbruck), Centre international d’art et du paysage (Vassivière), lugar a dudas (Cali), MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome and La Box (Bourges). Giacconi presented his films at several festivals, including the Mostra del Cinema di Venezia, the New York Film Festival, the International Film Festival Rotterdam, Visions du Réel and the FID Marseille International Film Festival, where he won the Grand Prix of the international competition in 2015. In 2007 he co-founded the Blauer Hase collective, with which he curates the publication ‘Paesaggio’ and the ‘Helicotrema’ festival.