Exhibitions
01 Sep 21 Sep 2018
Behind the Glasses
Federico Cavallini
You and your friends are cordially invited to a dialog between Federico
Cavallini and Davood Madadpoor on Friday, 21 September at 7.30 pm.
Opening of the exhibition within OPEN STUDIOS 2018
Opening hours: Tuesday to Friday 2 to 6 pm and on appointment
exhibition view
exhibition view
exhibition view
exhibition view
photos: Ela Bialkowska, OKNOstudio
What would a work of art look like that retains what has been discarded in the production process and makes this visible? In other words, if nothing remains external to the work?
Federico Cavallini conceived his series Behind the Glasses for the villa's glass exhibition pavilion,
contrasting its transparence with an aesthetic of rubbish. The work is a monument to all that is thrown away; it can be walked around on the outside and entered from the inside. This is not a hothouse in which anything grows, however; this is a place of conservation.
The material consists of candy and mouse poison, collectible stickers and porno images, packaging, pictures of saints and cigarette butts, fish-glue watercolors and spray-painted graffiti. Cavallini collects all these things destined to be thrown away and forgotten, and in doing so, he interrupts functional processes—as he did in earlier works consisting of fallen leaves, washing machine lint, defective handicraft goods. Cavallini takes things meant to be forgotten and archives and conserves them; vacuum-packed in plastic or grouped together in Plexiglas containers, they remain visible.
The sheer amount of material discarded is huge, it is too much, too many things, too much information. A transformation of everyday hyper-consumerism, a disposal action that nonetheless reawakens memories and feelings of guilt, fear, and aggression. In the process, Cavallini evaluates nothing. Thus, the rubbish he saves from obscurity creates history and renders it visible.
Federico Cavallini, born 1974 in Livorno where he is still living. He graduated in medieval art history at the Faculty of philology and philosophy at Pisa University and was working as an assistant for Fabio Mauri. In 2012 he was one of the founding members of the Carico Massimo project space in Livorno. Main exhibitions. Galleria La Nuova Pesa, Rome; Mausoleo di Santa Costanza in collaboration with Fondazione Volume! Rome; Thessaloniki Biennial; La Venaria Reale, Turin; Italian Embasy, Berlin; Kunstraum München, Munich.
