Luca Spano’s artistic research often revolves around the imaginary of Sardinia, his motherland. Exploration, colonialism, construction and representation of knowledge are recurring themes of his work. At the origin, Spano uses the island as a metaphor to talk about the concept of image. A place that exists through its representation but that is inaccessible, making from its research a creative act of reality.
The exhibition includes 25 images made between 2011 and 2018, which cross the island from its coast to the interior of it. The photographs surround an installation in the center of the room, consisting of four traditional Sardinian chairs and four fragments of various types of rock. The chairs of different sizes are coming from the house where the artist grew up. A stone is placed on each chair, in that order: obsidian, granite, trachyte, and sandstone. Each of these stones has had and still have an historical, economic and cultural importance for Sardinia because it has been a bargaining chip, a morphological foundation of the landscape, a material of architecture and sculpture.
The work presented is built on the basis of this cultural landscape. An installation of images and objects that plays with the contemplation of an island and its history, a territory that the more we look at it closer, the more it becomes mysterious: a Terra Incognita, a place of conquest for imagination.
This exhibition is part of the thematic cycle around Sardinia, the creativity of an island, a cycle of events organized in November and December by the Italian Cultural Institute of Paris.
Luca Spano was born in Sardinia in 1982. He studied communication and art at the University of Sapienza in Rome, the London College of Communication and Cornell University in Ithaca, USA.
His work has been exhibited in Europe and the United States in museums, galleries and festivals including: the Macro Museum in Rome, the Milan Triennale, the Breda Photo Festival in the Netherlands, the Caelum Gallery in New York, the Luis Adelantado Gallery in Valencia, Spain, and the Savvy Contemporary in Berlin.
He has participated in residencies including those of Fundacion Botin in Spain and NoArte Future Frontiers in Italy. His artistic research has been rewarded with: The MEAD Fellowship, the John Hartell Award, and the Graziadei Award.
Luca Spano has taught anthropology and art in Italy and the United States. Currently, he lives and works in New York.
As part of its cycle on Sardinia, the Italian Cultural Institute of Paris offers several events and in particular the exhibition of Maria Lai: Follow the rhythm (opening on December 4, 2019):
On the occasion of the centenary of the birth of Maria Lai (Ulassai 1919-Cardedu 2013), the Italian Cultural Institute organizes an exhibition dedicated to the artist, in collaboration with the archives Maria Lai, the Fondazione Stazione dell’Arte, the Fondazione di Sardegna and under the patronage of the city of Ulassai. After two major exhibitions dedicated to the Sardinian artist at the Uffizi Museum in Florence in 2018 and the MAXXI in Rome in 2019, Maria Lai: Follow the Rhythm is the first retrospective dedicated to the Sardinian artist in Paris. Among the works exhibited: sewn books, geographies, looms, card games and testimonials of his environmental interventions, including Legarsi alla montagna (1981), an example before the letter of “art relational”. The opening will take place with Davide Mariani, curator of the exhibition and director of the Stazione dell’Arte museum in Ulassai. Until January 10, 2020 (Monday to Friday from 10am to 1pm and from 3pm to 6pm, as well as in the evening during events)
Practical information :
Opening on Tuesday, November 26 at 7 pm
Exhibition from November 27, 2019 to January 3, 2020
Italian Cultural Institute, 50 rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris
Monday to Friday from 10am to 1pm and from 3pm to 6pm and in the evening during the events
Free entry
More information on : https://iicparigi.esteri.it/iic_parigi/fr/gli_eventi/calendario/2019/11/mostra-terra-incognita-la-sardegna.html
Information
Institut culturel italien de Paris
50 Rue de Varenne, 75007 Paris, France
November 27, 2019 to January 03, 2020
