Maurizio Cannavacciuolo: A Lecture on Martian History

Italian artist Maurizio Cannavacciuolo is the eighth Artist-in-Residence at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to create a temporary site-specific work for the Museum’s Anne H. Fitzpatrick façade. Drawing on his interest and experience of living and traveling through Asia, particularly India and Thailand, Cannavacciuolo explores the many ways cultural influences overlap and diverge in contemporary society. His installation, A Lecture on Martian History, will be on view from June 28 through January 9, 2017.

His installation is a fictional narrative about the colonization of Earth by Martians told generations later by a many-armed teacher, who is the product of human-Martian interbreeding. In the early years of the invasion, when the Martians enter the empty human houses, they discover flickering television sets. They are fascinated by the hypnotic, repetitive images, white noise and static emitted by the blank screens. The television becomes a Martian cult object. In the façade artwork there are five vignettes, each telling a part of the story, including a scene set in a fictional performance hall at the Gardner Museum.

Cannavacciuolo’s elaborately overlapping drawings and patterns relate a science fiction story, drawing on cultural trivia, emotion, and aesthetics to deliver a witty and provocative message about life, culture, and consumption in the 21st century. His design is inspired by Edo textiles from Japan and Cuban tiles from Havana, all part of his multi-cultural vision.

His style is also reminiscent of Isabella Stewart Gardner’s passion for the sumptuous look and feel of textiles. Just as Gardner surrounded works of art with fabrics of different colors and patterns, Cannavacciuolo also likes to juxtapose patterns and colors in bold ways. Born in Naples, Italy, and now a resident of the city of Turin, Cannavacciuolo has shown his work internationally, including solo exhibitions at Sprovieri Progetti (London), Allegra Ravizza Art Project (Milan), Baltic Center for Contemporary Art (Gateshead, UK), Museu da Republica-Galeria Catete (Rio de Janerio), and Sperone Westwater (New York). His works are also part of several collections including the Foreign Ministry in Rome, the Naples Metro, the Muze Savremene Umjetnosti of Sarajevo, the Italian Embassy in Tel Aviv, and the Italian Embassy in Santiago, Chile. His extensive travels led him to study, live, and explore the Far East, Cuba, and most notably, India and Thailand. In 2004, he had an exhibition at the Isabella Gardner Museum called TV Dinner. 

The Artist-in-Residence Program is directed by Pieranna Cavalchini, the Tom and Lisa Blumenthal Curator of Contemporary Art, and is supported, in part, by the National Endowment for the Arts and the Barbara Lee Program Fund. Funding is also provided for site-specific installations of new work on the Anne H. Fitzpatrick Façade on Evans Way. The museum receives operating support from the Massachusetts Cultural Council, which receives support from the State of Massachusetts and the National Endowment for the Arts, and the Boston Cultural Council, a local agency which is founded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council and administered by the Mayor’s Office of Arts and Culture. Media sponsor: Boston Magazine.