Nicola Ruben Montini
The Crisis and a Crisis
in the Life of an Actress
12 April–17 May 2013
Opening: Thursday, 11 April, 7pm
Galleria Massimodeluca
Via Torino 105/q
30170 Venezia Mestre
Hours: Monday–Friday 10–5pm
Saturday by appointment
T +39 041 531 44 24
M + 39 366 687 56 19
info [at] massimodeluca.it
www.massimodeluca.it
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Curated by Andrea Bruciati
The space in Mestre dedicates the second of four personal exhibitions scheduled for 2013 to one of the few Italian artists under 30 who is able to give his performances the force of social demands: Nicola Ruben Montini.
Galleria Massimodeluca, inaugurated last October in Mestre (Venice, Italy) which is dedicated to seeking and promoting young contemporary art, continues its 2013 schedule with a new personal exhibition: The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress by Nicola Ruben Montini (12 April–17 May 2013). Andrea Bruciati is again the curator and uses the views of the philosopher Søren Kierkegaard to act as the common thread and idea behind the art show: a unique exhibition that not only hopes to make an impact but also to make us reflect on the role of art and the artist in today’s world, also through the exclusive and new performances imbued with political and spectacular meaning, which will take place during the inaugural event on Thursday 11 April starting at 7pm.
Stilt walkers who read stories of love and democracy, hand-woven carpets which ask disconcerting questions, and then Italian current affairs as seen through the international press: these are just some of the elements in The Crisis and a Crisis in the Life of an Actress, whose performance both live and fixed in images, installations and works—all created specially for this occasion, for the space at Massimodeluca—will allow Montini’s poetics to be appreciated. Bruciati chose him for his capacity to use the performance as a vehicle not just of personal expression, but also of communication of the world with the world, tackling political problems that are often linked with issues of gender.
“For Søren Kierkegaard (the title of the exhibition having been freely taken from his work) man has no ‘nature’ or essence: he becomes what he is as a consequence of his choices and can change into anything,” explains the curator, Andrea Bruciati. “On the other hand, as Nicola Ruben Montini emphasises, you have to make choices, because also not doing so is in reality a choice. Can the performative act therefore be demonstration and experiment for hypothetical answers, always to become? For Montini, paraphrasing the philosopher, there is no rational order in the universe, which has no meaning and is absurd. Like a poorly chained Prometheus, the artist insists on being free from rules, whether of a civil or emotional nature, and acts according to a continuous oscillation between a tragic horizon and a paradoxical dimension verging on the comical. And it is in the very theory of the free act, of which man is basically incapable since everything in him obeys reasonings, that the worldly and therefore political attempt of Montini arises, expressed through a mysterious yet highly modern medium—his own body—whose narcissistic temptation is never denied.”
The exhibition catalogue, edited by Andrea Bruciati, will contain texts by Eugenio Viola, Paul O’Kane and Mara Ambrozic.
The 2013 programme of Galleria Massimodeluca, under the guidance of Massimo De Luca and Marina Bastianello, will continue at the end of May with a new group exhibition, following the success of NI DIEU NI MAÎTRE: on 23 May the space in Mestre will see the inauguration of Yellowing of the Lunar Consciousness, an exhibition with an alchemic feel and international scope, which will offer some young Italian artists the possibility of comparing themselves and exchanging views with an equal number of same-age foreign artists, including Jonathan Binet, Jacob Kassay, and Mihut Boscu.
Attention will then again be focussed on Italians under 30, with another two personal exhibitions by Dario Pecoraro and Giorgio Guidi.
