AT FONDAZIONE ADOLFO PINI 'THE ACCURSED HOUR', AN EXHIBITION BY CARLOS AMORALES

AT #fondazioneadolfopini THE ACCURSED HOUR, AN EXHIBITION BY CARLOS AMORALES
curated by Gabi Scardi

April 2nd – July 8th 2019

Fondazione Adolfo Pini – 2 Corso Garibaldi, Milan

From April 2nd to July 8th, 2019, on the occasion of Miart 2019, #fondazioneadolfopini will present the exhibition THE ACCURSED HOUR, by #carlosamorales, curated by Gabi Scardi.

Carlos Amorales is interested in language, images and their transformation. More generally, he takes an interest in communication systems, their constant renewal, their potentialities and pitfalls; as well as the mechanisms that allow particular narratives to emerge at the expense of others; and, by extension, the issue of dominant representation, the manipulation of communication and thought. In his work visual art, music, animation and poetry converge, all interpreted, with great formal rigor, through a deep awareness of the present time and its tensions.

For #fondazioneadolfopini, Amorales has conceived the exhibition THE ACCURSED HOUR, which focuses on his life-size installation Black Cloud and on various elements from the project Life in the folds. The exhibition will also include silhouettes and other works by the artist, in a continuous shift between images and signs.

With Black Cloud, a swarm of thousands of black butterflies will invade the premises of the Foundation starting from the staircase at the very entrance. 15,000 butterflies will populate the new and the already existing spaces of the Foundation. With Life in the folds, the artist will scene the theme of human violence against other human beings. A kind of violence that lies deep within and that can explode in unjustified ways. The project also includes an animation video that tells a dramatic story while at the same time showing the hands of a puppeteer moving the characters' threads: a metaphor of the mystification to which history and our own actions are subjected, both whether we are aware of it or not.

From this central nucleus stems a variety of transpositions. Among the others: a large installation and a series of ocarinas, each of which has the shape of a sign and which all together create a coded language that can be both "read" and "played". Their sound is also used as the video’s soundtrack. Some shapes appear on the walls of the Foundation as if they went through them: they are human silhouettes and seem to hold some papers in which the salient moments of history are represented. The exhibition will also include the story-board in which the video’s characters and story come to life for the first time.

With this exhibition, Amorales refers to his country, Mexico, while at the same time showing extremely current discrepancies and tensions throughout the world, and the need to identify the origins of our ghosts, to recognize their scope, matrix, and ideological value.

After presenting the five site-specific projects The Missing Link by Michele Gabriele, Materia prima by Lucia Leuci, Memory as Resistance by Nasan Tur, Labyrinth by Jimmie Durham and SUMMERISNOTOVER by Šejla Kamerić, with this new exhibition #fondazioneadolfopini continues its journey into #contemporaryart, under the guidance of Adrian Paci.

Carlos Amorales

Carlos Amorales lives and works in Mexico City. He studied in Amsterdam at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie (1996–97) and Rijksakademie van beeldende kunsten (1992–95). He has participated in artistic residencies at the Atelier Calder in Saché (2012) and MAC/VAL, Vitry-sur-Seine in France (2011), and as part of the Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship program in Washington, D.C. (2010). His works have been shown in numerous solo and group exhibitions. #carlosamorales represented Mexico at the 57th Venice Biennial with the project Life in the Folds (2017).

Gabi Scardi

Curator and #contemporaryart critic. Her research focuses on the latest artistic trends and the relationship between the arts and other close branches of knowledge. She worked with numerous museums and institutions in Italy and abroad, including: the Province of Milan; Pac Museum in Milan; Museo del Novecento in Milan; Pirelli Hangar Bicocca in Milan; MAXXI Museum in Rome; Venice Biennale; Royal Academy of London; Louisiana Museum in Copenhagen. For #fondazioneadolfopini she curated the exhibitions Memory as Resistance by Nasan Tur (2017) and Labyrinth by Jimmie Durham (2018).

From April 2nd to July 8th, 2019 Opening hours 10-13 | 15-17

Fondazione Adolfo Pini 2 Corso Garibaldi Milan T. +39 02 874502
www.fondazionepini.net