Paola Pivi
dal 28/6/2007 al 25/8/2007
Segnalato da
28/6/2007
Paola Pivi
La Criee Centre for Contemporary Art, Rennes
You gotta be kidding me. For this exhibition the artist has created a surprising installation made up of a vast structure that reaches from floor to ceiling in the main exhibition room. The ensemble is made up of a grid structure completely covered in multicolored jewel-like crystals. This grid structure is punctuated by abstract modules in suspension that evoke water droplets.
You gotta be kidding me
Born in 1971 in Italy, the artist Paola Pivi lives and works in Anchorage, Alaska.
Her presence on the international scene since 1995 has been prolific and her
pluridisciplinary practice is rooted in an art of reversal:
--One hundred Chinese people dressed alike and packed into a small room;
--A helicopter upside down on its propeller in the middle of a public square;
--The photograph of a donkey standing in a boat;
--An installation in which a myriad of needles suspended in a magnetic field react
to the presence of visitors…
The artist creates devices and actions that are less the result of observation of a
situation than of openness to spaces where paradoxes such as lightness and gravity,
softness and violence come into being.
For la criee Center of Contemporary Art, Paola Pivi has created a surprising
installation made up of a vast structure that reaches from floor to ceiling in the
main exhibition room. The ensemble is made up of a grid structure completely covered
in multicolored jewel-like crystals. This grid structure is punctuated by abstract
modules in suspension that evoke water droplets.
On entering into the exhibition space, the visitor finds him/herself confronted with
this monumental work that oscillates between the flat surface of painting and the
volume of sculpture. Beyond these identifications, the work involves voluntarily
contradictory and paradoxical perceptions:
--The simplicity and lightness of the work contradicts the monumentality of the
installation;
--After the visual seduction of the multicolored beads, a threatening impression is
brought on by the grid forming a wall.
--Oddly, the colored space contains a charge of shadow and sadness;
--The brash superficiality of the installation contrasts with a latent feeling of
muted violence.
As is often the case in Paola Pivi’s exhibitions, narration is not straightforward
here. The first impression of surprise gives way to an analysis that leads the
viewer into an atypical, absurd, bizarre and extravagant world.
The artist likes to create improbable situations, to be experienced and experimented
with.
Anything becomes possible.
Opening june 29, 2007
La criée centre for contemporary art
Place Honore' Commeurec - Rennes
Tuesday to Friday from 12:00 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Saturday and Sunday from 2:00 p.m. to 7 p.m.; Closed on Mondays and public holidays.
Free admission