Fabio Rossi, amongst the foremost dealer in Classical and Contemporary Asian Art, is delighted to present a fine selection of Italian Post-War and Contemporary Art, in partnership with Giovanni Martino, in the 2018 edition of Fine Art Asia Hong Kong.
This exciting addition to the gallery’s presentation is in response to the growing market demand for Western art in Asia. Together, Rossi Martino aims to bring greater attention in Asia to modern and contemporary European artists.
Hightlights will include Combattimento di galli, an exceptional painting on linoleum from 1991 by the Italian postmodern provateur Aldo Mondino. Mondino was fond of using unusual materials – linking the concepts of Arte Povera with emotions, which he represented with sculptures made of chocolate, paintings on sheets of linoleum, mosaics of marshmallows, carpets of coffee and seeds, as well as sculptures in bronze, ceramic, wood and glass. Considered amongst his most significant innovations, painting on linoleum allowed the artist to exploit the irregular patterns and colours of the substrate to great effect, in contrast to the predictability of canvas for portraiture.
Also on view is a work on papyrus by the Italian-born, New York-based artist Massimo Antonaci. Widely recognized for his daring use of material, Antonaci’s works in tar and glass have received international acclaim. His work on papyrus begins where those on glass finished, transmuting a force, characterized by the artist as ‘man’s own shadow’, which materializes as a circle rendered on handmade papyrus sheets. Drawing from his vast research in history and religion, Antonaci’s work is replete with symbolism and mystery. The artist views the wrinkled, parched medium—the physical result of air and sunlight drying out papyri sap—as the embodiment of what is and what remains, a timeless awareness that survives and substantiates reality, “It’s the substratum of the soul, freed from the movements of the mind and readied to capture consciousness.”
A monumental totem by Italian contemporary polyhedric artist Giorgio Vigna is another highlight of the presentation. Composed of bracelets made of the most varied metals, the totem emerges as a stalagmite marked by mysterious underground cavities. Vigna draws the public’s attention to this threshold, to dwell on and rediscover the reality of nature with a different look. Working with a variety of primary materials that are capable of referring to primordial emotions and consciousness, he seeks to reveal their innate possibilities. Glass as solidified water, copper as fire, and gold as light, Vigna demonstrates a kind of alchemy magically hidden in his works and in the tradition of the typologies of the subjects he deals with.
The presentation will also include lifelike ceramic sculptures by the artist duo – Bertozzi & Casoni. Their sculptures – symbolic, mocking and pervaded by sense of attraction for all that is short-lived, perishable and decaying – have become internationally recognized metaphors of a human condition. The biting irony of their works is balanced by an unassailable executive perfection. Between compositional surrealism and formal hyperrealism, Bertozzi & Casoni study contemporary society’s rubbish, including that of its culture: of the past and more recent art trends. Icons like the Brillo box, passed through the filter of Pop Art, and the tins of Merda d’artista of Piero Manzoni, in refined ceramic versions that examine their obsolescence and decay, show the signs of a time irremediably gone and a congealment in forms that, conversely, give them genuine immortal fate.
