Xing presents Francesco Cavaliere Abyssal Creatures

• Thursday 7 March 11 am + 3 pm: public talk
• Friday 8 March  6.30 pm: sound performance
• Friday 8 March 2 pm > 6 pm; Saturday 9 March 9 pm> 6 pm: sound installation
• Accademia Belle Arti di Bologna - Aula Magna: Via Belle Arti 54 - Bologna
• project supported by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture under the Italian Council program (2023) produced by Xing

Friday 8 March and Saturday 9 March 2024, in the Aula Magna of the Fine Arts Accademy of Bologna, the Italian premiere of the project Abyssal Creatures by Francesco Cavaliere, which consists of a sound installation that can be visited over the two days, with an activation as a sound performance (6.30 pm on Friday) in which the artist performs a narrative construction that surrounds the musical aspect of sound.

As an introduction to the artist's work, on Thursday 7 March at 11 am and 3 pm, the Fine Arts Academy will host two talks with Francesco Cavaliere, open to the public and students of the Academy starting from the courses of Prof. Carmen Lorenzetti.

Abyssal Creatures is a project by Francesco Cavaliere, curated and produced by Xing, that materializes a fantasy narrative about a group of creatures, a new saga by the artist inspired by the images of the marine flora of the abyss, hybridized with archetypal figures of the human unconscious. These creatures, coagulated on glass in the form of sound sculptures are beings that inhale sound and exhale resonances are presented for the first time in Italy, installed and performed by the artist in the classicistic space of Aula Magna of the Fine Arts Accademy of Bologna.

The new artworks by Francesco Cavaliere are an ensemble of concave Murano blown glass sculptures, which recall animals and plants from the depths of the sea, non-bipedal, transparent creatures assembled like communicating vessels that form a sounding body. The Music that flows inside them is like an abstract vascular form, drawing inspiration from the Xylem and the lymphatic systems that some plants have. Here is their physiology according to Cavaliere: “They are sound bodies that function as ambivalent musical instruments (idiophones, such as bells, and areophones, susceptible to air vibrations) for which the two transparent materials par excellence were used: glass, rigid and crystalline, and sound, an intangible element, which moves and organizes through gaseous paths. The floral elements of the sculptures and the curvilinear shapes constitute a set of conical-cylindrical sound resonators, which host sound reproduction and diffusion systems. The sculptures seem to exude noises, the sound passes through them like an abstract vascular system.

From within the three Murano glass sculptures (green, orange and yellow), assembled like communicating vases, a sound composition will be diffused and they will be animated by the artist who will hybridize with them as avatars. A sonic life, made up of moody ups and downs, of stasis and ventilations, which like a sap will animate the sculptures, named Sàbanas I, Aliquomàs, Enquomanàsc, making them illusorily live.

Abyssal Creatures has been developed during 2023-24 along a productive and creative process with several occasions of activation. After Porto (festival The Museum as Performance at the Serralves Museu de Arte Contemporanea), and Bologna (Aula Magna of the Fine Arts Accademy) it will be presented in New York in April curated by ISSUE Project Room at UrbanGlass in collaboration with Pratt Institute, and in summer at the GAM – Gallery of Modern Art in Turin, with a new dynastic filiation, Sàbanas II, a sound sculpture recently acquired by the museum. In autumn, an artist book will be published with ViaIndustriae Publishing and an album for Xong collection - artist records will be released. The work will become part of the collections of the Museo d'Arte della Città di Ravenna.

Francesco Cavaliere is a visual artist, writer and sound maker born in Tuscany, Italy, in 1980. He lives and works between Berlin and Turin. His works are capable of enlivening his listeners' inner states through a polymorphic activity that combines writing, sound, voice, drawing, sculpture, which together stimulate the imagination, undertaking long journeys crossed by ephemeral presences. He writes sound stories and music based on particles of sound, noise and language, often integrated with installation and scenographic elements or live performance, showing a particular taste for the most diverse forms of exoticism. Over the years he has developed a veritable dictionary to catalogue the metamorphic beings that inhabit his own abstract fantasy universe: hybrids of objects, animals, plants, planets, trails, cosmic objects and physical and perceptual phenomena generated by glass, minerals and voices, recorded and performed with analog technologies. "I am a talking scribe ... my voice is a cloud, my pen hisses."

From 2011 to today Francesco Cavaliere has produced series of performances, light and sound actions, concerts, radio and audio-visual works, audio stories, readings in the visual and musical field, Augmented Reality stories, His work has been shown in museums, art centers and international festivals including: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, KORA Contemporary Art Centre, Castrignano de’ Greci; Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Milano; Ti con zero, Xing/Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma; Una Cosa Mostruosa, Sacro Bosco di Bomarzo; Triennale Teatro, FOG, Milano; LUFF Festival, Lausanne; Ambient Festival, Cologne; Live Arts Week/Xing, Bologna; GLUCK 50, Milano; Terraforma, Villa Arconati, Milano; RIBOCA1 Riga International Biennial, Riga; Issue Project Room, New York; Cafè Oto, London; Helicotrema Recorded Audio Festival, RAI radio 3, Milan; INFRA FESTIVAL, Tokyo; BOZAR, Bruxelles; 3HD Fest, HAU Habbel am Ufer, Berlin; Empty Gallery, Honk Kong; 7TH Berlin Biennale; Les Urbaines Festival, Lausanne; Museum of Contemporary Art di Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde; Grimmuseum Berlin; CTM festival Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art, Warsaw: QO2 Bruxelles; Kraak Ghent; ART Brussels.

Personal exhibitions in the visual field: Prodigy Kid (2022), MAR Museo d'Arte della Città di Ravenna; La Lince d'Ombra e Pietra Sponga (2021), Una Boccata d'Arte, Fondazione Elpis e Galleria Continua, Vallo di Nera ; Anubis vs Baboon (2019) Gluck 50, Milan; Soffio Che Scotta (2015); Xing/Marsèlleria, Milan; Lancio Meta Meteo (2014) Grimmuseum, Berlin; Volta di Lame di Lune (2012), Kinderhook and Caracas, Berlin. Group exhibitions: Raymond et des Palmes (2018), part of Manifesta 12, Palermo; Green Music (2017) Yamamoto Gendai Gallery, Tokyo; The Glowing Glove (2014) Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde; Volta di Lame di Lune (2012), Liverpool Biennale. Francesco Cavaliere, also known as Francis Knight, has released the double LP Gancio Cielo (Hundebiss records - for which he also curated the on-line project Musica Virtuale), the LPs Etrusca 3D  (Discrepant), Zoomachia Disc 1 (Fantom Dischi), Aquilone Grattacielo dj mix (Pacific City Disc), Sijuaq il Chiurlo veggente (Poole music). He also released on cassette and digital the sound works Volta di Lame di Lune, Alata Onda, I films fan venire gli occhi rossi, IATO (self productions) and ENERGIA NUVOLA (Troglosound), Xylomania (CN), Doro Bengala (Presto!?). In duo with Sea Urchin they released the albums Yaqaza (Kraak rec), Tahtib (Bokeh versions), Natal Uranus (Commend see, RVNG), and in duo with Tomoko Sauvage the LP Viridescence (Marionette). Forecoming releases: Popoli di Vetro (Xing >< Xong Collection), tape + booklet L'arco Infra le Nubi (Canti Magnetici). He published the books Gancio Cielo DNA CLEPSYDRA (NERO editions), Anubis vs Baboon (Lombardelli Ed, Gluck 50) and Il Grillo Minerva (ViaIndustriae). He has collaborated with visual artists, musicians and choreographers: Leila Hassan with the duo Sea Urchin, Marcel Türkowsky, Elisabeth Kirche, Ignaz Schick, Ghédalia Tazartès, Invernomuto, Lievens Martens Moana/Dolphins Into The Future, Ruben Spini, Annamaria Ajmone, Spencer Clark, Tomoko Sauvage, Leonardo Pivi, Christopher Kline, Amy Franceschini.

https://cavalierecircles.wixsite.com/francesco-cavaliere

www.instagram.com/cavaliere.circles7    francescocavaliere.bandcamp.com    soundcloud.com/f-cavaliere

Abyssal Creatures is produced and curated by Xing, supported by the Directorate-General for Contemporary Creativity of the Italian Ministry of Culture under the Italian Council program (12th edition, 2023), which aims to promote Italian contemporary art worldwide. Partners: ISSUE Project Room New York, Serralves Museu de Arte Contemporanea Porto, ViaIndustriae Publishing, Xong collection, Museo d'Arte della Città of Ravenna. Thanks to Accademia di Belle Arti di Bologna.