22/4/2009
Scaffoldings
HSF, New York
Mariagrazia Pontorno exhibits two works linked to each other and both entitled Roots. Her series of digital images adopt the iconography of traditional herbaria. Tamas Jovanovics exhibits Horizontal Straight Lines: a series of paintings exclusively consisting of horizontal straight lines on square-shaped canvases.
Curated by Raffaele Bedarida
Italian artist Mariagrazia Pontorno exhibits two works linked to each
other and both entitled Roots. Her series of digital images adopt the
iconography of traditional herbaria. Eight species of plants and
flowers that grow and blossom in Central Park during the months of
Pontorno’s residency in Manhattan, are painstakingly reconstructed in
exceptionally precise 3D pictures (with the technical support of
Alessandro Lupo and Francesco Palenga). Only at a closer analysis the
viewer feels uncomfortable: the tension between naturalness and
artificiality emerges slowly and uncannily from those plants. Printed
and traditionally framed, the synthetic herbarium further resounds in
the early-1900s environment of HSF’s townhouse. Pontorno’s second work
is a storyboard, the project for a visionary video animation: the
plants of the herbarium are now in Central Park’s Great Lawn. Touched
by the wind, they emerge form the ground and levitate. In the
background, the skyscrapers takeoff as space shuttles, showing their
eradicated roots.
London-based, Hungarian artist Tamas Jovanovics exhibits Horizontal
Straight Lines: a series of paintings exclusively consisting of
horizontal straight lines (thousands of them) on square-shaped
canvases. Combined in triptychs, the canvases are hung at 45 degrees,
and the colored-pencil lines dash through the lozenges. The optical
result on the canvas’ surface is that of a pulsing vibration, a
centrifugal tendency (Rosalind Krauss), described by Jovanovics in
terms of evasiveness. Beyond the canvases’ limits, the effect is that
of an infinite continuity: the lozenges are “just” the visible
terminals of the lines’ virtual limitlessness. An homage to Piet
Mondrian’s New York work, Horizontal Straight Lines engage a dialogue
with Manhattan: their infinite horizontality is playfully dialectical
with the most vertical of all the cities.
Opening reception: April 23, 2009 – 6.00 PM
HSF
128 W 121 Street - New York
By appointment