Freymond-Guth

LOREDANA SPERINI
„quello che conta“

22 May - 10 July 2010
Opening Friday, 21 May, 18hrs

Freymond-Guth & Co. Fine Arts is pleased to announce a possibly surprisingly visual¬ly deserted and abstract exhibition of Loredana Sperini (IT, *1970, lives in Zurich).
For a number of years Loredana Sperini has been raising international attention with her disturbing figurative imagery embroidered onto pristine white cloths and wax painting directly onto walls. Apparitional characters with aesthetic and atmospheric disturbances inhered those works.
In her latest works the protagonists are entirely missing. Figurative drawings in black and white have given way to colourfully, glinting and yet mostly frowning wax pain¬ting- Sperini no longer brings movement onto paper and cloth but applies vibrating colour onto wood.
Nevertheless the mysterious tension of her works by no means was lost. In fact the viewer is taken away into an architectural world, provoking diverse associations. The formal language of her expansive architecture has been evolved from her drawings of past years: lines and spatial levels direct to the sky, buttressing grotesque faces and heads.
The artist now again has taken up comparable elements in a steel sculpture and unfolds them into a three-dimensional space that becomes backdrop and seemingly accessible sculpture at the same time. While steel and wood elements alternate with shiny and matt plains, mirrors make the sculpture grow into infinity. And while in earlier mirror works the viewer found him/ herself in a fragmented self- portrait, the reflections here pull him/ her into the sculpture’s inner life.
New wax paintings line with this sculpture that was conceived of the space by the artist. Only in their feel of surface and their relief- like character they resemble earlier black and white works. They now are entirely abstract and also in relation to their colours Sperini has developed a new language. From primarily dark grounds on rectangular wood, triangles and squares sprout in a spectrum from violet, blue, yel¬low, green and red. Coat after coat Sperini applies the hot wax mixtures and works on some parts for days while others immediately integrate harmoniously with the visual ensemble. Different thicknesses of the individual plains attest this procedure as an evidence of an intense and possibly nerve- wrecking confrontation between painter and surface.
The paintings divulge a spiritual energy that also manifests in the sculpture, con¬verging into pikes and in that sense reminding of a mountain ridge. The mountain motif but moreover also the flaming choice of colour are redolent of Ernst Ludwig Kirchner (1880- 1938) or also the less known expressionist Marianne von Werefkin, who, like Kirchner spent her life in Switzerland after the breakout of World War I.
Other associations may be found in alchemy flickering plains of colour conflated in meditative action from wax being preserved in flux. What is being disclosed to our eyes seems to witness a truth beyond; fluorescent paintings that open deep and abys¬mal worlds through their surfaces. Not seldom one thinks of church windows, of pos¬sibly numinous enlightenment but also of burning horizons and ominous nemesis.
Emotionally strongly connoted material such as mirror, wood and wax still play an important role in Sperini’s works. Originally committed to the graphical she works the mentioned materials with the same sensibility, reminding of warmth and a feeling of security, dispensing light and energy.
In the gallery’s cabinet the only so to say figurative work can be found- entangled wax hands in many shades of colour. With this direct human indication and the knowledge of her past works the abstraction of the rest of the exhibition might read even the more as a mirror to the human soul. Sperini’s oeuvre still emphasises on fundamental existential orientations: disquiet, apprehensibility, disruption and abscondence being only a few of the terms that should be mentioned here.
Alexandra Blättler, Mai 2010 (translated by Penelope Shand- Kydd)
Loredana Sperini (IT, *1970, lives in Zurich) studied Fine Arts in Zurich und Lucerne

Exhibitions and projects (selection, s= solo exhibition):2010: Freymond-Guth & Co. (s), Migros Museum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich, Autocenter, Berlin, D, Substitut, Berlin, D

2009: Holster Projects, London, UK, Cueto Project, New York, US, Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, LT, Dienstgebäude, Zurich, CH, Swiss Art Award, Basel, Werk- und Atelierstipendium Zurich, Helmhaus, Zurich, CH2008: Kunsthaus Zürich, CH, Citric Gallery, Brescia, IT, Cafe Gallery Projects, London, UK, Artnews Projects, Berlin, D, Canton of Zurich Grants, Zurich, CH
2007: Freymond-Guth & Co, Zurich, CH (s), La rada, Locarno, CH(s), Substitut, Berlin, D, fruehsorge gallery, Berlin, D, Kunstmuseum Lucerne, CH,
Museum Appenzellerland, CH
2006: Kunstgriff, Zurich, CH (s), Swiss Art Awards, Basel, CH, Freymond-Guth & Co, Zurich, CH, Werk- und Atelierstipendium Kanton Zurich, Zurich, CH
Seedamm Kulturzentrum, Pfäffikon, CH 2005: Kunsthalle St.Gallen, CH(s), Galerie Art-Magazin, Zurich, CH (s), Kunstmuseum Lucerne, CH, K3 Projekt Space, Zurich, CH, O Artoteca, Milano, IT, Pilot:2, London, UK, Les Complices*, Zurich, CH, Museum Bellerive, Zurich, CH, Kunstverein Jena, Jena, D 2004: Les Complices*, Zurich, CH, Helmhaus, Zurich, CH, Kunstmuseum Solothurn, CH, Stiftung Binz39, Zurich, CH, Dina4 Projekte Munich, D (s)2003: Kunstmuseum Thun, CH (s), Landpartie N∞ 5, Zurich, CH, o.T. Raum fuer aktuelle Kunst, Lucerne, CH (s), Swiss Art Awards, Basel, CH
2002: Kunstmuseum Lucerne, CH, Kunstpanorama Lucerne, CH
Grants and Residencies:
2008: Canton of Zurich Grant
2006: Canton of Zurich Grant, Residency in Berlin, Landis & Gyr Foundation
2004: Fine Arts Foundation of St.Gallen Grant, Swiss Award for Fine Arts
City of Zurich Grant
2003: Swiss Award for Fine Arts, Residency Binz39 Foundation, Zurich
Canton of Zurich Grant, City of Zurich Grant
2002: Canton of Lucerne Grant, City of Lucerne Grant