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7/5/2008

Paolo Bertocchi and Nicus Luca'

Esso Gallery, New York

Nicus Luca'
StraigtPinPaintings

Jennifer Bacon and Filippo Fossati are pleased to announce the opening of the gallery’s first solo exhibition by Italian conceptual artist, Nicus Lucá on Thursday, May 8, 2008

"Carol Rama, Aldo Mondino and Alighiero Boetti represent an incursion into the ordinary with the desire of reinventing the world over and over again. The three of them introduced themselves into ambiguous terrain where vision and perception split giving birth to a new and specific poetic thought. Lucá, who has once been Mondino's alumni, made his own their linguistic method but sure enough not their style," Italian critic, Alberto Fiz, states.

Under the influence of these three Torinese predecessors, Lucá deconstructs convention and takes his visual language into a diverse sphere with a broad knowledge of what conceptual art means and can do.

Entitled StraightPinPaintings, the exhibition presents a series of work that recaptures paintings from Caravaggio to Warhol through straight pins. Hundreds of pins pierced behind the canvas extract the quintessential aspect of each painting and produce a three dimensional quality. His radical and almost provocative gesture of pushing the pins forward is, in a way, to push the past behind and fill the gap between the era of the painting referenced and that of the viewer. In his 12-hour video "Punto" the viewer follows the creation of a painting as the pins, one by one, poke through the canvas.

"...the intent of the artist is to give life to the visual universe through something already widely used or, even better, worn-out."

Lucá's work deals with the transformation of the actual objects and ideology of art-making. His intention is not to produce replicas of world-reknown paintings, but to pierce art history and reveal what is unknown or hidden in and beneath the painting. Depending on where the angle from which it is viewed, the iconic image of each painting seemingly emerges and disappears, as if the painting were giving off fumes and bewildering its surroundings. With the manipulated visible and invisible space, the chiaroscuro created by the pins, the viewer is asked to trace one pin to the other from any angle and tie the pins and surrounded space together. Ultimately, the pin is no longer defined by its role and the image of the historical painting loses its importance. This transformative process and existential approach set his art free from a fixed idea of the existing painting; the past becomes irrelevant.

Lucá acts like a prankster, manipulating the past and present, space and time. with only one tool. Through the relief of pins against canvas, his work confronts what appears and disappears on the surface of the painting. Owing to the illusory nature of the painting, his work exists not to view, but to experience.

Nicus Lucá was born 1961 in Torino, Italy, where he lives and works. His work has been exhibited internationally, including Museo Marino Marini, Firenze, Italy; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Casa del Console, Calice Ligure, Italy; Centre d’Art de Baie-Saint-Paul, Canada; Trevi Flash Art Museum, Trevi (RM); Museo di Sant’Agostino, Genova, Italy; Galerie Tabea Langenkamp, Düsseldorf, Germany; Museo dell’automobile, Torino, Italy; Galerie Hernst Hilger, Wien, Austria and Galleria Continua, San Giminiano, Italy. His work has been included in Esso Gallery's group exhibitions. Straightpinpaintings is the first solo show at Esso Gallery.

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Paolo Bertocchi
Permutation Fugue

Jennifer Bacon and Filippo Fossati are pleased to announce the opening of Esso Gallery’s first solo show by Paolo Bertocchi, entitled Permutation Fugue, in the project room.

Permutation Fugue, an arial installation work, weaves black rubber inner-tubes, manipulating internal and external space. Fugue literally means escape of sound; a run-away stream of music; permutation fugue describes a technique of musical composition in which elements of fugue and strict canon are combined. Invoking Baroque aesthetics, the dramatic effect executed by an overload of decorative elements ultimately emphasizes the empty space. Bertocchi groups together several installations of inflated black inner-tubes, air captured in space as an expression of emptiness.

The black rubber tube is central to his art, the material plays an important role to create a balance between the physiological and organic entity, as well as the decorative and solid component in structure. Tied, twisted and connected, the tubes are metaphors for the viscera of an animal, the endless loop suggests continuity; life in progress. Bertocchi's intention is to reveal the origin of life and the formation process of the universe by designing patterns and developing space inside and outside of the tube. Ultimately, invisibility becomes visible and the finite becomes infinite.

Paolo Bertocchi was born 1968 in Bologna, Italy. He currently lives and works in New York City. In 2005 he was awarded the Annenberg Foundation Honorary Fellowship. His installations and performances have been featured in museums and galleries internationally including: MACRO Museum of Contemporary Art Roma, Italy; The Museum of Modern Art, Salzburg, Austria; Braga Menendez Gallery, Buenos Aires, Argentina; The Modern Art Gallery (G.A.M.), Bologna,Italy; Djerassi Foundation, San Francisco, CA; Artists Allince Inc. Space, New York City; Palazzo Florio, Udine, Italy; Corraini Gallery, Mantova, Italy and Apexart Gallery, New York City.

Esso Gallery
531 West 26th Street 4th floor - New York

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