Enzo Cucchi and Johannes Kahrs at GAMeC
Thursday, March 22nd, 2007
GAMeC
ENZO CUCCHI. SCULPTURES
curated by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio
JOHANNES KAHRS.
MEN WITH MUSIC
curated by Alessandro Rabottini
Opening:
TUESDAY, 3 APRIL 2007, at 6.30 pm
GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo
Via S. Tomaso, 53
24121 Bergamo (Italy)
http://www.gamec.it
On 3rd April GAMeC will present two solo exhibitions dedicated to Enzo Cucchi and Johannes Kahrs.
ENZO CUCCHI. SCULPTURES
4 APRIL – 27 MAY 2007
The exhibition at GAMeC – Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea di Bergamo is the first show in a public institution devoted entirely to the artist’s sculptural work and it contains works dating from the early 1990s until today including more than forty bronzes, a large ceramic work, and a canvas measuring 6×6 metres made specially for GAMeC. Placed on the far wall of the large room, the canvas will provide the background to the show.
The exhibition illustrates the sculptural development of an artist who is known above all to the public as a painter. In fact Cucchi has never ceased to produce sculptures, or paintings that contain sculptural or indeed installational forms. Many of his earliest works expressed three-dimensionality, a spatial quality that is also apparent in his painting and drawing. He pays heed to space, consequently, his images are never flat, always being placed in a three-dimensional void. Having his output rooted in sculpture means that his works enjoy a degree of originality compared with the trends that were predominant in the late 1970s and distinguish themselves from the new purely pictorial work being done at the moment. In this way he keeps alive the experimentalism typical of the avant-gardes: his installations are made from more diverse materials, placed freely in the exhibition space, and used as supports for his painted, sculpted or drawn images. Seen from his standpoint, the
exhibition at GAMeC has been conceived and will be laid out as a large installation, a single large work of art made up of many small but great works.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a bilingual catalogue published by Electa, Milan and includes a text by Giacinto Di Pietrantonio. This will be the first catalogue devoted to Cucchi’s sculpture and will feature not just the works on display but also the large body of sculptural works that the artist has produced over his artistic career.
JOHANNES KAHRS. MEN WITH MUSIC
4 APRIL – 29 JULY 2007
Men with music dedicated to Johannes Kahrs, one of the most outstanding figures in German and international painting since the 1990s, is the first solo show of the artist in an Italian museum.
The first floor of the gallery houses thirty paintings, some of which have never been presented to the public, that are laid out in a site-specific itinerary conceived by the artist to suit the display areas of the museum. The theme of the exhibition will be the representation of identity and the male body in relation to sexuality, violence, desire and loss.
Kahrs’ painting is distinguished by its intense emotional power and its perceptual and psychological impact. The starting point of each of his works are either photographs, or cinema or television stills, or, as has been the case for his most recent works, photos taken by the artist himself. Kahrs mixes fragments of images with his personal experiences, and places them in an atmosphere suggesting fiction, memory, dreams or imagination in which it is difficult to distinguish outlines. His is an ambiguous universe, with blurred, mysterious outlines, in which the multiple dimensions of desire and perception are charged with a tension that has no particular setting in time or space. It is difficult to describe what is happening in his scenes or even to identify their subject. What remains is an atmosphere, a sensation, a doubt and a profound fascination.
The exhibition is completed by a bilingual catalogue designed as an artist book, published by Diamondpaper, Berlin, with a conversation between the artist and the curator Alessandro Rabottini.
The exhibition is supported by the contribution of IFA – Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen and realized in collaboration with Goethe-Institut Mailand.
Hours:
Tuesday to Sunday: 10 am–7 pm
Thursday: 10 am–10 pm
Closed Monday
For information:
GAMeC - Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea
Via San Tomaso, 53
24121 Bergamo
tel. +39 035 399528 / fax +39 035 236962
http://www.gamec.it
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