Mazzoleni returns to ART DUBAI 2024 with a project dedicated to the subject of Relations, explored in the work of Marinella Senatore, Andrea Francolino and Melissa McGill, through a variety of different media.
Marinella Senatore bases her creative practice on the transformative power of social engagement and human relations. Her luminaries and neon work, like Remember the First Time You Saw Your Name, 2022, place community and participation at their centre, encouraging public activation and involvement through her use of language, light and scale. Her collages explore universal themes including complex social issues, as demonstrated in the series Opera! 2023, collage and gold leaf on wood panel. Within these works the hieratic golden backdrop, which recalls the scenes of Italian Old Masters, is juxtaposed with materials from her archive. Photographs, memories of installations, images of her public performances with The School of Narrative Dance, musical scores, botanical images, and texts converge, inviting reflection and participation from the viewer.
The "crack" serves as a key element in Andrea Francolino's work. While the connotations associated with a "crack" traditionally encompass notions of breakage, fault, corruption or fragility, Francolino transforms this seemingly negative feature, into a profound source of renewal. Much like the transformative practice of _Kintsugi _in Japanese art, exemplified in pieces like m2 and Fragment, where the crack in the concrete is meticulously fused with a golden leaf, the artist highlights its accidental uniqueness, contrasting it against the backdrop of mass standardisation. His "Water Series" also resonates with an intimate relationship to the natural landscape, where space and time are imprinted on paper using only the inorganic element of water. These works are at once ephemeral and enduring, thanks to the coordinates that fix its existence within a precise spatial and temporal context chosen by the artist. The concepts of fragility and impermanence are thus reflected in the intimate reflections suggested by the "crack".
In a similar realm, Melissa McGill's practice explores relations between humankind, nature and the interconnectedness of all living things. McGill is a New York based interdisciplinary artist known for ambitious, collaborative, site-specific public art projects. At the heart of her work is a focus on community, meaningful shared experiences, and lasting impact. Spanning a variety of media including performance, photography, painting, drawing, sculpture, sound, light, video and immersive installation, McGill has presented both solo exhibitions and independent public art projects since 1991. One such project, _Red Regatta,_ is represented at Art Dubai through a selection of large-scale hand-painted photographic renderings. This project consisted of an unprecedented series of four large-scale site-specific performances, presented in parallel with the 58th Venice Biennale in 2019, in which 52 traditional _vela al terzo _boats sailed in choreographed regattas, each with sails hand-painted in distinct shades of red. Her recent paintings made with organic indigo pigment on paper, with intricate brush techniques, invite contemplation on the preciousness of water.
Courtesy of Mazzoleni, London - Torino.
Dates
Wednesday, February 28, 2-9 pm (by invitation only)
Thursday, February 29, 2-9 pm (by invitation only)
Friday, March 1, 2-9 pm
Saturday, March 2, 2-9 pm
Sunday, March 3, 10am-12pm (by invitation only); 12-4pm (public)
Location
Madinat Jumeirah Conference & Events Centre
King Salman Bin Abdulaziz Al Saud St
Al Sufouh 1
Dubai
United Arab Emirates