Vedovamazzei
dal 4/11/2005 al 23/12/2005
Segnalato da
4/11/2005
Vedovamazzei
Praz-Delavallade (old lacation), Paris
The artists present a group works which summarizes their artistic practice. 'The Swimmer' is a work composed of domestic bulbs laid out on a plateform in a narrative order; 'What a life, Guys' is constituted by a red sofa scrachted by a cat in which appear a message made out of light coming from the inside. 'Shorts sighted mirror' drives the spectator into an unbalanced and uncertained feeling; 'Isn't it romantic?' present a Thonet chair whose reversed back gives to this object the tragic beauty of a human being.
Solo exhibition
The name Vedovamazzei brings together the Italian artists Stella Scala and Simeone Crispino. Under this pseudonym which they randomly chose on a tomb stone and which means “widowed Mazzeiâ€.
They summarize at the same time the female and male part of the couple while preserving a kind of anonymity. But the ambiguity of their name also introduces their choice where reality plays with the fiction and where objectivity is always mixed up.
What is immediately striking in the work of Vedovamazzei is its incredible polymorphism, feeling free to use every medium: from painting to video, from cartoon to performance, from sculpture to architecture.
They gave life to an innovative and provocative work, often tinted with irony and often interpreted as a comment of contradictions and neuroses of the contemporary life style.
A large part of their works are inspired by extremely bizarre and yet rigorously real events (excerpts of chronicles, movies and personal experimentations).
The motivation of Vedovamazzei is not so much an intention of social comment (and even less denunciation), but rather a fascination for everything paradoxical, eccentric, out of norms.
This is the way they choose their subjects but also the way they treat them: using languages and expressive techniques in an unusuall direction.
For their first personal exhibition at Praz-Delavallade, Vedovamazzei present a group of complex and varied works which summarizes their artistic practice.
“The Swimmer†is a work composed of banal domestic bulbs of varied size laid out on a plateform in a narrative order. On these bulbs Vedovamazzei drew excerpts from the movie The Swimmer (1968) directed by Frank Perry. in this movie Burt Lancaster decides to come back to his place crossing the valley swimming from one pool to an other. Turning this strange and attractive movie into a work where once again appears their very own world mixing triviality and poetry, irony and melancholy.
In the same space: “What a life, Guys ! » : new work, especially conceived for the exhibition showing irony and sarcasm which are the trademark of their work. A little red sofa savagely scrachted by a cat let appear a message made out of light coming from the inside.
Further: the “Shorts sighted mirror†is a work wich drives the spectator into an unbalanced and uncertained feeling. The perplexity of the object pushes away the spectator but at the same time attracts him. A circular mirror which turns silently into itself so fast that it seems not to move. Like the retina of a short-sighted eye, the reflection seems vague but becomes precise getting closer.
“Isn’ t it romantic?â€: a Thonet chair whose reversed back gives to this banal object the tragic beauty of a human being, too weak to live anymore and which rests folded up on itself under a glass box. The structure confirms the interest of Vedovamazzei for contradiction: contradiction, in this case, between the anecdotic contents and the execution of an almost neo-classic elegance.
Image: Isn’ t it romantic?
Opening: November 5th
Praz-Delavallade
28, rue Louise Weiss - Paris