Luca Trevisani
09 Mar - 20 Apr 2013
Luca Trevisani
to the tips of your fingers
09 March – 20 April 2013
The work of Italian artist Luca Trevisani (*1979 in Verona) deals with transformation, fragility and transience. For his third exhibition at Galerie Mehdi Chouakri, the artist presents sculptures and paintings made between 2012 and 2013.
„No artwork is a descriptive process, but an act of foundation“, explains Trevisani, outlining his view on art. This outlook is based on the idea that the world is understood through experience. By confronting matter directly–as opposed to accumulating abstract knowledge–we experience external reality, which is understood in the form of experiences. Paradigmatic for this understanding are the chemist, the cook, and the hunter. It is only through their activity that they experience external reality, generate new experiences, and bring forth the new.
In the work Marmomarmalade, Luca Trevisani combines fragile material such as egg shells with marble. The broken eggshells give the impression of something new breaking forth, which in turn emphasizes a senstaion of the marble‘s unbreakability. Trevisani simulates the interaction between these culturally charged materials by laying a thin plastic film with a crystalline structure over the fragile eggs. In addition to the conflicting notions of fragility and transience versus permanence and indestructibility, the work also touches upon concepts of the organic versus the artificially created.
Interested in the transformation of materials through natural and chemical processes, Trevisani scans objects of mostly organic origin. Translated from three dimensional objects to flat images on the coarse aluminum surface, the images take on abstract proportions. The light breaks across the rough aluminum surface of the resulting print in many ways, allowing the viewer to experience new works as they shift perspective throughout the room. placet experiri flogisto reads the title of the work, which is to be understood as an invitation to initiate experiments as a means of gaining experience.
The light and airy suspended work Wrapping lesson n. 20 refers to the japanese art of packaging. Sea urchin shells – intact, opened, and painted – are brought together with nylon string in a finely balanced composition. While the shells themselves are natural casings, the cords supporting them allude to culturally manufactured packing techniques.
Simple, random materials such as as branches, feathers, dried plants as well as string, metal bars, and plexiglass are put to use by Trevisani to create objects that resemble archaic weapons. In Trevisani‘s understanding, the use of weapons as tools represent the connection between man and nature. In his 2010 Series >, Trevisani uses this bricolage of materials such as drillbits, metal, and plastic vanes to create bow and arrow like objects that represent the four basic elements– earth, wind, water, and fire. The artist‘s work was last seen in Berlin in the 2012 show „Wie kommt das Neue in die Welt?“ at the Haus am Waldsee. Trevisani‘s work is also currently represented in an exhibiton of the Daimler Art Collection at the Museo di Santa Giulia in Brescia, while another solo exhibition featuring Trevisani will be held at in the Marino Marini Museum, Florence (2014). An exhibition catalogue will be published.
– Mehdi Chouakri
to the tips of your fingers
09 March – 20 April 2013
The work of Italian artist Luca Trevisani (*1979 in Verona) deals with transformation, fragility and transience. For his third exhibition at Galerie Mehdi Chouakri, the artist presents sculptures and paintings made between 2012 and 2013.
„No artwork is a descriptive process, but an act of foundation“, explains Trevisani, outlining his view on art. This outlook is based on the idea that the world is understood through experience. By confronting matter directly–as opposed to accumulating abstract knowledge–we experience external reality, which is understood in the form of experiences. Paradigmatic for this understanding are the chemist, the cook, and the hunter. It is only through their activity that they experience external reality, generate new experiences, and bring forth the new.
In the work Marmomarmalade, Luca Trevisani combines fragile material such as egg shells with marble. The broken eggshells give the impression of something new breaking forth, which in turn emphasizes a senstaion of the marble‘s unbreakability. Trevisani simulates the interaction between these culturally charged materials by laying a thin plastic film with a crystalline structure over the fragile eggs. In addition to the conflicting notions of fragility and transience versus permanence and indestructibility, the work also touches upon concepts of the organic versus the artificially created.
Interested in the transformation of materials through natural and chemical processes, Trevisani scans objects of mostly organic origin. Translated from three dimensional objects to flat images on the coarse aluminum surface, the images take on abstract proportions. The light breaks across the rough aluminum surface of the resulting print in many ways, allowing the viewer to experience new works as they shift perspective throughout the room. placet experiri flogisto reads the title of the work, which is to be understood as an invitation to initiate experiments as a means of gaining experience.
The light and airy suspended work Wrapping lesson n. 20 refers to the japanese art of packaging. Sea urchin shells – intact, opened, and painted – are brought together with nylon string in a finely balanced composition. While the shells themselves are natural casings, the cords supporting them allude to culturally manufactured packing techniques.
Simple, random materials such as as branches, feathers, dried plants as well as string, metal bars, and plexiglass are put to use by Trevisani to create objects that resemble archaic weapons. In Trevisani‘s understanding, the use of weapons as tools represent the connection between man and nature. In his 2010 Series >, Trevisani uses this bricolage of materials such as drillbits, metal, and plastic vanes to create bow and arrow like objects that represent the four basic elements– earth, wind, water, and fire. The artist‘s work was last seen in Berlin in the 2012 show „Wie kommt das Neue in die Welt?“ at the Haus am Waldsee. Trevisani‘s work is also currently represented in an exhibiton of the Daimler Art Collection at the Museo di Santa Giulia in Brescia, while another solo exhibition featuring Trevisani will be held at in the Marino Marini Museum, Florence (2014). An exhibition catalogue will be published.
– Mehdi Chouakri