Michele Zaza
dal 8/9/2006 al 13/10/2006
Segnalato da
8/9/2006
Michele Zaza
Galerie Martine Thibault Delachatre, Paris
The works of the artist collide with real space; the wooden sculptures are placed outside the photographic space. Photography and sculpture strengthen one another in turn. The space becomes a sacred place, referring metaphorically to the structure of the universe, to the earth, and simultaneously to the heavens.
Paesaggio segreto
Michele Zaza was born in Molfetta (Puglia) on 7th November 1948. After
having attended the Institute of Fine Arts in Bari, he moved to Milan
to study sculpture with Marino Marini at the Brera Accademy of Fine
Arts.
His first exhibitions took place in Milan at the Diagramma gallery
(''cristologia'' in 1972 and ''naufragio euforico'' in 1974), in Bari at
the Bonomo gallery (''dissidenza ignota'' 1973), in Brescia at the Minini
gallery and in Naples at Lucio Amelio.
In 1976, with the cycle of work entitled ''anamnesi'', he invites the
spectator into a magical world where the figures seem to fly - as if in
a dream - amongst pieces of bread. The artist opens a celestial aerial
space which evokes the mysteriousness of the universe - a space of
rediscovered freedom.
Towards the end of the 1970´s Zaza´s works invert the relationship
between the high and the low, the pavement and the stars, freeing
objects from the gravity of the ''normal'' world and from their
utilitarian function: ''The bread'', says Zaza, ''lost its nutritional
value in order to become a creative element.''
Michele Zaza´s utopia does not look to the future, as happened with the
historical avant-gardes; it does not seek to break with the past, but
aims instead to re-form ties with the origin, to rediscover the poetic
and mythical dimension of man.
In the 1980´s and 1990´s his works collide with real space; the wooden
sculptures are placed outside the photographic space. Photography and
sculpture strengthen one another in turn. The space becomes a sacred
place, referring metaphorically to the structure of the universe, to
the earth, and simultaneously to the heavens.
Zaza has exhibited in Paris (the Yvon Lambert gallery), Zurich (the
Annemarie Verna gallery) and Munich (Tanit gallery). He took part in
Documenta 6 and 7 at Kassel. In 1980 a one-man show was dedicated to
him at the Leo Castelli gallery in New York, and he has exhibited (with
a room dedicated to his work) at the Venice Biennale. Over the last few
years important one-man shows have focused on his work in Moscow
(Shchusev museum), Rome (Museo Laboratorio dell´Universita' ''La
Sapienza'') and Geneva (Mamco - museum of contemporary art).
The pieces reinstate, in an atmosphere charged with symbols, the figure
of a supreme body open to relationships and interaction with a magical
and secretive scenery; a body transfigured by the artist through the
application of blue face-paint, and guarded by mysterious forms,
sculptural and archetypal presences, or by everyday objects (hunks of
bread and cotton wool or a pillow
Galerie Martine Thibault Delachatre
4 rue de Saintonge - Paris