Federica Schiavo

OPENING FRIDAY 1 OCTOBER, 6.00 9.00 PM

Federica Schiavo Gallery is pleased to announce the first solo exhibition in Europe by Ishmael Randall Weeks.

For the three room site-specific installation at the gallery the artist plans on using the distinct spaces to extend his exploration of spatial concepts and quotidian perspectives integrating thoughts on landscape, architecture, roof design and erosion as a way of entering a formal, conceptual and visual dialogue centered on and around fragility and structure.

The foundation of Randall Weeks’ work is the alteration of found and recycled materials and environmental debris, often on site, and includes such source materials as empty tins, books and printed matter, bicycles, boat parts, and building construction fragments, repurposing humble objects to create site-specific installations, sculptures, and works on paper that probe issues of urbanization, development, travel, mobility, and exchange in a globalized world. His sculptures often take the form of conveyances, such as carts, cranes, carriages, as well as chariots, altered maps, and precarious structures, alluding to the artist’s own migrations: Randall Weeks has spent the past four years living between Peru, Brazil, Bolivia, Mexico, and New York.

By creating works that take the visual form of functional objects while stripping them of their productivity, the artist addresses notions of labor and utility, forcing an exam ination of our understanding of culturally specific forms. Further, his use of abandoned objects, refuse, and detritus as sculptural material forces an acknowledgement of the constituent elements, simultaneously exploiting and adapting their particular codes and associations.