LORIS CECCHINI
DOTSANDLOOPS
4 April -2 August 2009
Viale della Repubblica,
277 – 59100 Prato,
Italy
Curated by Marco Bazzini and Stefano Pezzato, this show claims to be the most complete and detailed overview of the work of Loris Cecchini (Milan, 1969). Arranged in close collaboration with the artist, the exhibition is characterized by environmental works accompanied by an ample selection of photographs, sculptures and installations dating from the mid-1990s to the present day. Engaged from the very start in the investigation of the object and of space, with this important one-man show Loris Cecchini establishes himself as one of the artists most appreciated both in Italy and abroad.
The display begins with a series of installations/environments, or “exercises in architecture” which develop an idea of the environment by altering the spectator’s relationship with it. In this group of works we find the new version of Around and Around, a schematic landscape modelled in three dimensions on the computer and reproduced in perspective as a trompe l’œil grid on the walls of a room. The viewing route follows an enormous traversable volumetric grid that takes after Density Spectrum Zone (2002-2004), installations created by deforming and linking together PVC elements expanding into the space.
For Cecchini the conception and creation of “structures” takes the form of a series of dwelling places and modules entitled Monologue Patterns: Matrici (2003), consisting of sketches created digitally and engraved on grey PVC surfaces, and Crisalide (Premio per la giovane arte italiana, 2005), a sort of artificial greenhouse intended as an area of interchange between natural organism and transfigured architectural form. The Monologue Patterns series also includes the Roulottes (2004-2007): object—environments transformed into “vehicles of light” which project shadows of the network or fretted modular grids which cover them, or else into transparent places containing plants, books and other objects which the public can handle.
The artist’s direct relationship with space and his passion for biological morphology is displayed in the expansion of bubbles and the proliferation of organic, molecular or artificial forms produced with metals or plastic materials. He creates the series of extruded bodies in resin, which like skeletons (Morphic Resonance, 2004-2007) or familiar architectural features emerge from the walls and take on the surreal appearance of windows, bookcases and radiators (Gaps, 2004-2009), or else cling to the building in the form of huge transparent balloons suspended in space (Blaublobbing, 2004-2009).
The show then includes the photo-montages of his early career in which, with the photography reworked on the computer, Cecchini creates fictitious environments inhabited by real people, transparent dwellings (No casting, 1997-1999), external views using vivid colours, billowing morphologies of bubbles, transparent involucres (Powderscape/Seedscape/Pigmentscape, 2005-2007), 3D models of trees and photographs of icebergs reconstructed in the studio with invented architectonic models (The painted distances, 2008 e Sliding constructions and drifting thoughts, 2008-2009).
Next we have the replication of objects, the elaboration of virtual “models” obtained by manipulating analogical material which when set beside the spatial scenes transfigure reality and destabilize the way they are perceived. In the three-dimensional version offered by the series Stage Evidence (1998-2007), the artist plays on the idea of “viewing consumption”.
On the environmental scale, however, these virtual “models” acquire a forcibly scenic impact by taking on a role of social denunciation as in BBBreathless, a work presented at the 2001 Venice Biennale, consisting of an isolation cell for death row prisoners, equipped with a sophisticated aeration system which causes the rubber walls to expand and contract as in a breathing body. The virtual “models” continue with Empty walls – Just doors (2006), a series of repeated rubber doors installed in such a way as to form a maze, as if suspended between a sense of mystery and claustrophobia.
Belonging to the artist’s most recent phase are the figurative installations, works composed of thousands of polyethylene or steel modules projecting into the environment like natural or mineral incrustations (Steelorbitalcocoon, 2007-2009). Created by a laborious process of design, manufacture and assembly, these installations display a complex technical system, the basis of all Cecchini’s work as an artist. These works reveal his great curiosity about artificial products and the techniques of manufacture, for the chemistry and physics of the elements, together with his constant search for direct experience with his materials associated with forms of organic growth and cellular aggregation.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a new catalogue, containing critical essays by Marco Bazzini and Lorand Hegyi, texts by the artist himself and an exhaustive iconographical and bio-bibliographical apparatus.
LORIS CECCHINI: DOTSANDLOOPS
Luigi Pecci Centre for Contemporary Art
Prato (Italy), 4 April – 2 August 2009
www.centropecci.it
Exhibition promoted by: the Regione Toscana and the Comune of Prato
With the contribution of: the Fondazione Monte dei Paschi di Siena
With the support of: ASM Ambiente Mobilità Servizi spa, CariPrato – Gruppo Banca Popolare di Vicenza, Gruppo Consiag, Unione Industriale Pratese
Official Partner: Aeroporto di Firenze
Sponsor: Salvatore Ferragamo
Technical sponsor: Fly in balloons srl