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24/4/2014

Marco Mendeni & Marc Vincent Kalinka

Theca Gallery, Lugano

curated by Matteo Bittanti

In occasion of the new edition of the OFF CONTEMPORARY ART FAIR BRUSSELS (25th-28th April 2014), Theca Gallery Lugano is proud to present the special double solo show, dedicated to the contemporary artists Marco Mendeni and Mark Vincent Kalinka.

Following the directive of the fair, which intends to develop a synergie between the established contemporary art and the alternative one, by showing with energy, enthusiasm and creativity an innovative, daring and unconventional approach towards art, the double solo curated by Matteo Bittanti, expert about Game-Art / videogame art and Professor of Visual Studies in Milan and San Francisco (already curator of the exhibition Deceptive Perceptions, on the artist Marco Mendeni, at the Civic Gallery Campione d’Italia), will focus on the perceptions and feelings aroused from the connection between reality and virtuality, simulation and dis-simulation, apparent antinomies that the works of the two artists have in common.

Marco Mendeni is a new media artist, born in Brescia, since years devoted to an artistic research based on the videogame medium, which experiments the contamination between matter, computer animation and 3D production. The virtually real world of the videogame loses its fictional nature of playable simulation to become a middle-earth to be explored and revealed by the means of the most different media. Today in pendolarism from Milan to Berlin, his works are ranging from the digital ethereal nature of the machinima such as I am Niko Bellic or FOV02, to the matter series on concrete such as Game Over, Sim City or Avatar. The double solo in Bruxelles will indeed include some pieces of the mentioned series Game Over (2010) Sim City (2009-2013), and Avatar (2009), where ephemeral screenshots of the ‘80s arcade videogames and isometric urban landscapes are wisely tangled up in concrete blocks, in order to weave together the incorporeity of the videogame digital structures with the fisicity of their frames, making this dichotomy the vector of their significative potential. After having obtained important expositions in Europe and America, among which the recent solo Kenell Game Over in Lugano (Theca Gallery, 2013) and various site specific installations in Berlin (Impossible Backgrounds), Milan (Playing the game, I am Nico Bellic), and San Francisco (FOV02), the artist will expose, in the end of April, a video of his own at the Civic Gallery of Trento / MART, the event will be curated by Giorgio Verzotti, director of Arte Bologna Fiere.

Mark Vincent Kalinka is a contemporary artist with Russian origins, whose work ranges from visual arts to the performance, from the video to the new media and the environmental installations. With great humor and irony, but never falling into moral judge, he treats about actual political and social matters, leading the spectator to an intimate and personal reflection. Exemplar in that sense are the video-work "Nothing (Still). Eight hours with a lunch break. A stolen video by Marc Kalinka", 8 hours an 30' video, 2007, in which the artist sees himself as the protagonist of the video, giving evidence to the inside immobility and nothingness of many human activities, and the biographic More Yellow-Red, (2009) put up to auction by Christie’s Zurich, that will be exposed at the double solo in Bruxelles. Part of the exposition will be also the more recent hand silkscreenprints "Bulgakov, The fatal eggs", (2014), and "Sussurrealism" (2014), this last one combining surrealism and dada with a contemporary accent. Thanks to the mixture of traditional and contemporary language, visible in works such as “Maliconico” and “Kingdom of Broken Dreams”, he has been internationally recognized for his innovative work.
The artist has recently taken collateral part to the 55th Biennale of Venice, including his work into the project “Balconism”, as well as, in the past, to the Biennale of Moscow for the first two editions. His works have been exposed during internationally recognized art fairs, such as the Frieze Art Fair in London. The artist will also participate with a work of his own to MANIFESTA10 in Saint Peterburg, next june.

Opening 25 april 2pm

Theca Gallery
via Pessina, 13 Lugano
Saturday 26th April: 2 pm-11pm. Sunday 27th Aprile 11 am-8pm. Monday 28 Aprile: 10am-3pm
10 Euro

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