On the Matter II
da un’idea di matteo lorenzelli | a cura di ilaria bignotti from march 13 to may 31 2025
opening march 13 - h.18.30
lorenzelli arte | milan
luca caccioni | faust cardinali | serge attukwei clottey alberto gianfreda | sophie ko | ibrahim mahama | jason martin albano morandi | nunzio | liu rouwang | arcangelo sassolino chiharu shiota | sissi | michele spanghero | antonella zazzera
Opening Thursday, March 13, from an idea of Matteo Lorenzelli with the curatorship of Ilaria Bignotti, is the second installment of On the Matter, a thematic exhibition that unfolds in the spaces of lorenzelli arte in two exhibition moments, intended to shed light on the declinations and motivations that drive historical and contemporary artists to use one or more materials in their research in innovative, consistent, repeated and in some cases even obsessive ways. Following the first route, dedicated to artistic investigations from the first half of the 20th century to the postmodern era, the second stage of the exhibition opens the curtain on current artists, many of them mid-career and internationally recognized, but also offers a perspective on some more recent research that nevertheless demonstrates maturity and coherence around the exhibition theme.
Thus, the itinerary offers the work of Nunzio, an alchemist of matter and cantor of a discipline of material imagination and the life of things, and the work of Japanese artist Chiharu Shiota, whose investigation is characterized by installations composed of interwoven threads and elements with a high symbolic and memorial rate, where matter highlights “existence in absence.” Sissi, an artist from Bologna, also works on knotting, the body, dressing and relationship, dialoguing punctually with Shiota.
Thus, the second stage of the exhibition addresses, through the optical telescope of matter, themes related to the philosophy of the body and relationship, investigating the cultural geographies of contemporaneity through different materials: metals, for which the bronze bodies of epic knowledge and powerful wisdom of Liu Ruowang, a Chinese artist who knows how to shape bronze in a monumental and mystical way, and the Armonici of Antonella Zazzera, an artist who makes light sing and copper strings vibrate, the material of choice of each of her works where matter is transformed into pure energy, are exhibited.
Other works in the exhibition offer an opportunity to observe the levels of experimentation artists have reached with plastic and industrial materials, such as Faust Cardinali who chooses polyvinyl resin, tackles it, and mixes acrylic, polyester, iron, and aluminum with objects of choice and fondness, disparate activators of imagination drowned in matter.
The exhibition then presents the work of Serge Attukwei Clottey, a Ghanaian artist who founded a veritable movement and method of artistic and social work: Afrogallonism. The jerry cans used for transporting cooking oil and gasoline, disused and dispersed in colossal quantities in his country and often reused as containers for transporting drinking water with the logical nefarious consequences for the health of the inhabitants, in fact become material for artistic reuse and the processual engine of a collective aesthetic activity: torn to pieces, they are transformed into a myriad of compositional elements of colored plastic, predominantly yellow, called upon to create mosaic textures of even monumental dimensions, along with old tires, scrap wood and burlap sacks.
The latter are the material of choice for Ibrahim Mahama, a Ghanaian-born artist at the center of international attention, who uses jute sacks to create monumental installations to stimulate public sensitivity to economic exploitation and social inequality, animated by the hope that these materials will become, the artist declares, “carriers of light” and can thus “lead us to new possibilities and spaces beyond.”
The material in other works is understood as a fragment and metaphor for rupture and relationship: sculptor Alberto Gianfreda composes works made from myriad pieces of reused ceramics, treating them as “a body that bends, stresses, breaks [...] always changes and transforms: even when it seems motionless.”
But the exhibition, posing as the second chapter of a unified fresco around matter in art, also tries to create points of contact between the historicized artists of the first exhibition stage and those currently on display: thus, Piero Fogliati is answered by Michele Spanghero whose matter is sound, as in the work Ad. Lib formed by six organ pipes and a lung ventilator that reinterprets an excerpt from Ein Deutsches Requiem op. 45 by Johannes Brahms to the rhythm of artificial respiration. Ample space is then given to artists who turn to reused and repurposed materials: Luca Caccioni chooses rubberized canvas, reinventing even the pigment of painting; Albano Morandi intervenes directly on the wall with colored adhesive tapes, strip after strip, covering the surface, covering it with a texture where the gaze becomes entangled and entangled. On the other hand, Jason Martin works experimentally on painting, placing it at the crossroads with sculpture and inventing new monochrome rhythms each time.
One of the main themes echoing in the exhibition is that of time: whether they are attempts to eternalize matter or icons of change, the works on display continue to investigate the transformation of things, the inescapable sense of their end; so does Sophie Ko, a Georgian artist who mixes butterfly wings, pollen, chromatic pigments, burned images that turn to ash, and Arcangelo Sassolino, an undisputed master of waiting and tension in matter, the image of a power in action.
The project is accompanied by a catalog published by lorenzelli arte with an essay by Ilaria Bignotti, full of exhibition views of the two shows, in which the artists’ works are accompanied by their statements, many of them specially collected, and a selection of critical excerpts.
Subsequently, from June 14, 2025, On the Matter II will be hosted at MO.CA – Centro per le nuove culture, via Moretto 78, Brescia.
Special thanks for valuable cooperation goes to Apalazzo Gallery, Brescia,
Francesco Ribuffo | Galleria de’ Foscherari, Bologna, Massimo Di Carlo | Galleria dello Scudo, Verona.
ON THE MATTER II
From March 13 to May 31, 2025
@lorenzelliarte
Corso Buenos Aires, 2 , 20124, Milan
FROM AN IDEA OF Matteo Lorenzelli
CURATED BY Ilaria Bignotti
CATALOG lorenzelli arte edizioni (2025)
ENTRANCE free
OPENING HOURS tuesday-saturday 10.00 – 13.00 e 15.00 – 19.00
INFO info@lorenzelliarte.com | +39 02 201914 | www.lorenzelliarte.com
