calendario eventi  :: 

X

23/1/2008

Your ramp my slide

FormContent, London

The preamble to this exhibition is a residency organized by Exposito, which took place in Naples, Southern Italy, from mid October to mid December 2007. On this occasion Exposito selected three artists, Micheal Dean, Maria Karantzi and Christodoulos Panayiotou, with the collaboration of Project 1:1 (Rome) and FormContent (London). Naples, with its social complexity, its architectural originality and its endless contradictions, is a place where the energy of a city feeds on its many conflicts. The three artists used the streets of Naples and its cultural peculiarities as their temporary studios. Francesca Boenzi curated the exhibition Yours at the end of the residency, it focused on the relationship between the artists and the city, developed over the two month period.

Your Ramp my Slide shows a different relation to the city and the artists’ work, due to the displacement of studios and locations from the exhibition in Naples to FormContent in London. As a consequence we would like to use the metaphor of the ramp instead of the image of a bridge: the ramp is seen as an architectonic device connecting planes of different heights.

More than bridging the variations between two cities, two organisations or two different audiences, the concept of a ramp suggests an alternative device for the continuity of a critical attitude within a different time or space. In this sense, and not without some irony, the title of the show connects the concept of the ramp to that of a slide, suggesting a possible encounter and dialogue between two realities operating on different grounds, though each maintaining their identities.

The exhibition is an attempt to displace or relocate to London some traces of the artists’ experiences. It is an opportunity to present the projects generated during the residency. The reference to Naples will be in this sense more ideal than literal, and we will try to rethink together with the artists how their work can function when facing a different time, space, context and public. Moreover, without drawing any definitive critical or conceptual context, we simply create a phenomenological derive from Naples to London and back.

Michael Dean’s (1977, UK) work originates from an alphabet he faithfully transposes into installations. During the residency the artist created his own mobile open-air studio in the Neapolitan alleys. There he also started to work on new texts whose application will be presented into new works conceived for FormContent and bearing the signature shape of hexagons.Maria Karantzi’s (1981, Greece) work operates on an unstable balance between playfulness and functionality. Her subtle and minimal interventions manage to change the perception of a space and succeed in making us discover a less superficial reality hidden underneath what we consider ordinary. Maria will be testing the architectonic boundaries of the space with threads and other poor materials.

Christodoulos Panayiotou (1978, Cyprus) won the 2005 4th DESTE Prize in Athens, Greece. He works in a variety of media: video, photography, performance and sound. Coming from a theatrical background, the artist often stages very characterised situations within his work. A lot of his production focuses on absence. In the exhibition space a poster will represent the existence elsewhere and in another time of an evocative song, which subsequently will be played in a cinema.

FormContent
347 Beck road - London

stampa

permanent link