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13/2/2006

Silvio Wolf

Galleria Gottardo, Lugano

Paradiso. Photography and video

The Cultural Foundation of Banca del Gottardo presents a new multimedia project by Silvio Wolf created specifically for Galleria Gottardo.

Paradiso is composed of two distinct and complementary parts: The Truth, or the set of photographic works, and The Treasure, the video work for which a room has been set aside in the exhibition. The artist has concentrated on the architecture of the Galleria Gottardo exhibition space and of the Bank that contains it, interpreting it through the use of photography and video to create a special relationship between the place and the work.

Paradiso is the result of exploration of the spaces designed by Mario Botta, and of the intuition of an idea of architecture seen as the art of making emptiness inhabitable. This concept is connected to the poetics of the artist on the themes of absence, emptiness and elsewhere, which recur in all his photographs and multimedia installations.

The large photographic works on the walls and the video projection form the itinerary of a real and symbolic voyage taken by the visitor through the show: the work Paradiso is conceived as a place of experience whose static and dynamic, visible and concealed parts are interconnected in a single network of visual cross-reference.

The artist looks for a guide, an underlying law, in the architecture: in his voyage through signs, canons and codes of space he explores the threshold between present and elsewhere, between material reality and immaterial entities. Along the way he creates images that are metaphors of the place, based on resemblance as well as disappearance and transcendence. The work Paradiso is composed of timeless images of eternal places.

For the exhibition a public presentation will also be held of the book Paradiso, Photography and video by Silvio Wolf, with texts by Francesca Pasini, Lyle Rexer and Silvio Wolf, published by Galleria Gottardo and Contrasto, graphic design by Studio Theredbox Communication Design. The book, which is part of the entire project, is like a Tree of Paradise and Treasure Map to accompany the reader in the voyage through the work of the artist and includes a DVD with backstage and interview to Silvio Wolf.

Biographical notes on the artist

Silvio Wolf was born in Milan in 1952, where he lives and works. He studied Philosophy and Psychology in Italy and Photography and Visual Arts in London, where he received the Higher Diploma in Advanced Photography at the London College of Printing.

From 1977 to 1987 he used photography to explore the laws, language and two-dimensional nature of the image. His work has moved in directions different from those of tradition, which favored the documentary and narrative value of the photographic image. Instead, he has pursued a more subjective, metaphorical view of reality.

In this period he made polyptychs and large-format works which have been shown in Italy and abroad, including Aktuell ‘83 in Munich and Documenta VIII, in 1987, in Kassel.

From the end of the 1980s to the present he has gradually introduced new languages in his work, using video, still projections, light and sound, either individually or in combinations. His works have moved away from the pure two-dimensional format of photography to involve architectural space and the specificities of the places in which he operates, creating multimedia projects and sound installations. In his site-specific projects, as in all his photographic work, the issues of time, absence and elsewhere are always central.

He has created temporary and permanent installations in galleries, museums and public spaces in Belgium, Canada, Germany, England, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, Switzerland and the United States.

He publishes essays, special projects, and curates exhibitions. He teaches Photography at the School of Visual Arts of the European Design Institute of Milan, and is a visiting professor at the Fine Arts Academy of Brera (Milan).

Galleria Gottardo

Galleria Gottardo, a cultural foundation of Banca del Gottardo, has been organising exhibitions since 1989, with the collaboration of museums, cultural institutions and collectors. In over 15 years of quality exhibitions it has explored human activities pointing at the innumerable facets of art and photography, of ethnography and archaeology, of design and peculiar objects that throughout the years have become the fount of interesting collections and publications. Bearing in mind the geo-linguistic position of our region, the Galleria Gottardo sets itself as a meeting point, a crossing and exchange point between Northern and Southern cultures. Its publishing activity has attained great importance within the framework of its production especially as far as texts and page proof are concerned and the quality of its catalogues. The Galleria Gottardo’s strong point is its availability to dialogue which allows it to find important partners for the realisation of new projects and st art long-lasting collaborations.

Catalogue: Paradiso, Photography and video by Silvio Wolf, with texts by Francesca Pasini, Lyle Rexer and Silvio Wolf published by Contrasto and Galleria Gottardo in a bilingual Italian-English edition. Includes a DVD with backstage and interview to Silvio Wolf. (http://www.contrasto.it/).

Press Office for Italy:
Uessearte
Tel. +39 031 269393
uessearte@tin.it

Media conference: 14 February 2006, 11 a.m

Opening: 14 February 2006, 6 p.m

Galleria Gottardo
Viale Stefano Franscini 12 - Lugano
Opening Hours: Tuesday 2pm - 5pm, Wednesday - Saturday 11am - 5pm. Closed Sun, Mon and holidays.
Admission Free

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