Metamorphosis A look on contemporary sculpture

Museo d’arte Mendrisio 9 April – 25 June 2017

Press conference: Museo d’arte Mendrisio: Wednesday 5th April 2017, 11 a.m.

Vernissage: Museo d’arte Mendrisio: Sunday 9th April 2017, 3 p.m.

In April 2017, the Museo d’arte Mendrisio opens Metamorphosis. A look on contemporary sculpture, a group exhibition with sculptures and installations. Visitors are taken on a journey through contemporary sculpture, created as complex forms that make their way back to organic structures and natural origins. It does so both through traditional materials, such as wood, bronze and marble, and through the characteristic materials of contemporary sculpture, such as, plastic and aluminium. What these forms have in common is their complexity, eccentricity and artificiality, which all attract the curiosity of the viewer, not unlike the way the famous Wunderkammern appealed in the sixteenth century. These “cabinets of curiosities”, which were collected, preserved and displayed by princes and royal families, were filled with bizarre and original objects that would surprise and amaze.

Pagina 2

Metamorphosis is a journey into labyrinthine, molecular, indefinable forms, which are indeed a reflection of the organic world, but especially one that is manipulated and magnified by an inner psychic and dreamlike dimension. The exhibition in the premises of the former Convento dei Serviti is a journey through contemporary naturalia and artificialia, in the works of 24 artists from Ticino, Switzerland and a number of countries around the world. Some are famous, others less so, and different generations interact with each other to create, each in their own unique way, a unified whole that constitutes a cross-section of the directions that contemporary art is moving in today. The exhibition has been specially designed, with the artists’ collaboration, for the spaces of the Museo d’arte Mendrisio. It opens in the great entrance hall with White Heart, by the Solothurn-born Carlo Borer, an enormous eight-metre-long beating heart made of fabric that is endowed with life by a mechanism just like that of the human organ. The visit continues with Julia Steiner’s lacquered concretions in clay, and Steiner&Lenzlinger’s constellation/flowers. Ai Weiwei’s bowels transformed into porcelain are followed by Alan Bogana’s plexiglas crystals and Christian Gonzenbach’s Jesmonite corals. Then we have Figini&Raggenbass’s dark scarlet carnations, John Armleder’s multiple color glass, Mirko Baselgia’s wooden hives, Christiane Löhr and Lorenzo Cambin’s plant elements, Claudia Losi’s clay brains, Tony Cragg and Jean Arp’s biomorphic forms, Meret

Oppenheim’s subterranean ribbon, Serge Birgnoni’s natural/erotic creations, Penelope Margaret Mackworth-Praed’s constellation in steel wires. Lupo Borgonuovo’s bronze mushroom is followed by Julian Charrière’s artificial lava portions, Loris Cecchini’s chromed steel ramifications, Selina Baumann’s molecular structures in plaster, Teres

Wydler’s naturalistic metaphors and we end up observing the contrast between the threadlike aerial forms of the installation specially created by Benedetta Mori Ubaldini and the textural composition made of iron and tyres by Matteo Emery. The complex multiplication of forms in space, the huge variety of materials, the wealth and exuberance of the colours, coupled with nature as an inexhaustible inspiration of creativity, a preference for assembly, accumulation or interlocking, as well as a propensity for the fantastical: these are but some of the distinctive features of a brief but highly insightful research into the multiplicity of approaches adopted by modern sculpture. Catalogue includes a critical presentation of the exhibition, critical-biographical entry for each artist, plates with the works on show, and photographs of the sculptures in the spaces of the Museo d’arte Mendrisio.

Pagina 3

Artists on display:

The exhibition is organized with the support of Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council.

Ai Weiwei John Armleder

Jean Arp Selina Baumann Mirko Baselgia Alan Bogana Carlo Borer

Lupo Borgonovo Serge Brignoni

Lorenzo Cambin Loris Cecchini

Julian Charrière

Tony Cragg Matteo Emery

Luisa Figini & Rolando Raggenbass Christian Gonzenbach

Christiane Löhr Claudia Losi

Penelope Margaret Mackworth-Praed Benedetta Mori Ubaldini

Meret Oppenheim Julia Steiner

Gerda Steiner & Jörg Lenzlinger Teres Wydler

METAMORFOSI Uno sguardo alla scultura contemporanea

Opening hours Tue-Fri 10.00-12.00 14.00-17.00 Sat-Sun 10.00-18.00 Mondays closed, open on bank holidays

Admission Adults fr. 10.-/€ 10.- Reduced fr. 8.-/€ 8.-

Catalogue Catalogue includes a critical presentation of the exhibition, critical-biographical entry for each artist, plates with the works on show, and photographs of the sculptures in the spaces of the Museo d’arte Mendrisio. Price chf/euro 20.-

Press Office

Lucia Crespi Ufficio Stampa e Comunicazione per l'Arte Via Francesco Brioschi 21 20136 Milano Tel. +39. 02 89415532- +39. 02 89401645 fax +39. 02 89410051

Information

www.mendrisio.ch/museo museo@mendrisio.ch tel. +41. 058.688.33.50

The exhibition is organized with the support of Pro Helvetia, Swiss Arts Council.