Dan Flavin, Chiesa Rossa and Fondazione Prada, Milan

Dan Flavin 
Chiesa Rossa and Fondazione Prada, Milan
29 November 1997 - 31 January 1998

The Fondazione Prada presents two important projects by Dan Flavin (1933-1996) who, with Sol Le Witt, Donald Judd, Robert Morris and Carl Andre, was one of the main protagonists of the American minimalist art movement: Untitled 1996 is a permanent installation at the church Santa Maria in Chiesa Rossa while Works 1964 - 1981 is a selection of historically important works housed at the Fondazione Prada itself.

The work at the Chiesa Rossa was the last project conceived and designed by Dan Flavin before his death, and consists of a permanent site-specific installation donated to the Chiesa Rossa by the Fondazione Prada. This system of fluorescent lights was especially designed by the artist for the main nave and transepts of the Chiesa Rossa, perhaps with the intention of bringing a metaphysical dimension to the immateriality of his minimalist work.

The installation consists of fluorescent tubes of different colours and lengths which are placed horizontally and vertically, symmetrically and asymetrically about the space which, combined with the architecture of renowned architect Giovanni Muzio who designed the Chiesa Rossa in 1932, create a spectacular visual effect. This work continues the tradition of dialogue between visual research and places of worship, a significant theme in modern and contemporary art as well as in architecture from Matisse to Rothko, from Nevelson to Cucchi. The project also owes its existence to the cultural and pastoral initiatives of Don Giulio, parish priest at the Chiesa Rossa.

The second project involves two thematic installations of Dan Flavin's works at the Fondazione Prada of Milan curated by Michael Govan, director of the Dia Center for the Arts in New York.

The first of these consists of works of the series European Couples, 1966-1976, a group of six 8 ft.-wide squares of fluorescent tubing, each in a different colour. The composition is extremely simple: in each set of four tubes, the two vertical ones are pointed towards the wall while the horizontal ones are aimed towards the installation space. Each ensemble is placed diagonally with respect to the corner of the room. The Milan exhibition use a linear architectural layout designed by Dan Flavin himself.

The second part of the show consists of a selection of Monuments for V.Tatlin, 1964-1981. These pseudo-monuments - Dan Flavin used the term 'pseudo' to underline the ephemeral and temporary effect of the fluorescent tubes which produce light for 2100 hours before burning out - call to mind the image of the Monument at the Third International by Tatlin. They become an homage to the fleeting and communicative existence of light. This presentation also makes use of a zigzag architectural project conceived by the artist and so both European Couples and Monuments for V .Tatlin may be considered as fresh, new readings and re-presentations of historical works by this classic minimalist.

Because of the complexity of this ambitious project which documents the meeting between a contemporary artist and architecture, in particular that of the historic Chiesa Rossa designed by Muzio, the Fondazione Prada has decided to produce a book that brings together reflections and theoretical essays on the interweaving of art and the sacred, contemporary research and places of worship, sculpture and the church, a space of ritual socialisation and an imaginary one. The main aim of this volume, edited by Germano Celant, is to decode or interpret the relationships existing between religious and secular projects in order to identify a point of cohesion or osmosis between the two different perspectives. For this reason theoreticians, philosophers, architects and historians such as Carlo Bertelli and Germano Celant, Hubert Damish and Christine Gluckman, Michael Govan and Vittorio Gregotti, Fulvio Irace and Don Pier Luigi Lia, Mario Perniola and Gianni Vattimo have been invited to write on this theme.

FONDAZIONE PRADA, MILAN
www.fondazioneprada.org

Vincent Desiderio, Marlborough Gallery, New York - Recent Paintings Exhibition

Vincent Desiderio: Recent Paintings 

Marlborough Gallery, New York 

December 2, 1997 - January 3, 1998

Marlborough New York presents en exhibition of recent paintings by VINCENT DESIDERIO (b. 1955). The exhibition consists of fifteen oil paintings, including nine in triptych form, painted during the past four years.

For Vincent Desiderio, the importance of painting to the life of the imagination is absolute. The act of painting makes available to the artist realms of understanding which are unforseeable outside of its processes. It is through the narrative, the fictional reconstruction of events, both personal and public, that Desiderio attempts to chart the vague and often elusive character of man at the end of the 20th century.

The works are composed in rich tonalities with optical layerings of cool and warm color. Viewing them, the visitor is conscious of a strong connection with pre-modernist painting. Yet, it is with an informed and discerning eye that Vincent Desiderio aligns himself with his historical antecedents. The process of creating the works takes a central place serving as a metaphor for being. What is most intriguing to him is the strong connection between his process and how one thinks through an image to its final resolution. Vincent Desiderio's technique, in fact, allegorizes the artist's quest for a replenished imaginative space.

Though Vincent Desiderio is undisputedly a painter of reality, that description alone only begins to describe what he accomplishes in his work. His intense blend of autobiography and dislocation, reveal him as influenced by existential thought and experience as well. The results are the portrayal of seemingly real situations through a dreamlike veil of trance and trauma.

In the painting entitled The Interpretation Of Color, the levels of meaning begin to reveal themselves from the choice of its title onward. Vincent Desiderio pays homage to his modernist past choosing a title which refers to Joseph Albers' life-long work (The Interaction Of Color). The painting's subject is a figure who, overfed on culture, has collapsed on the floor in a post-prandial stupor. Around him, one sees the emblems of his history. Art texts strewn about evoke a spiral of centrifugal movement. The nuanced paint handling contributes to the effect of slow movement as one descends into the vortex of this vertiginous space. He is a man of the land of Cockaigne, the mythical realm of human excess, conjuring in his slumber a narrative regarding the whole future of painting.

In the triptych entitled Mimetic Composition, three images present contrasting visions recording grief. In the center, a haunting image of a man's face appears as if staring into a mirror. Thus, the image of the sick man symbolizes passage through life. To the right, a wedding banquet or birthday celebration is set up for video-taping. But at the same time, it is abandoned and frozen in time, becoming a metaphor for the desire to record the celebration of events as if to eulogize them. Finally to the left, the most receding of the panels presents a life cast of a woman's face grimacing. It represents the inability of the signifier and the signified to meet, or the failure of words or images to touch the object itself. Vincent Desiderio's work continues to explore life's deeply rooted mysteries, hopes, and fears in a taught balance of change and stasis.

Born in Philadelphia in 1955, VINCENT DESIDERIO joined Marlborough Gallery in 1991, and had his first one man show in 1993. He has exhibited extensively in galleries and museums worldwide and his works are included in numerous private and public collections including The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York; the Denver Art Museum; the Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, NY; Galerie Sammlung Ludwig, Aachen, Germany; the Greenville County Museum of Art, Greenville, SC; and the Indiana University Museum of Art, Indiana, PA; among others.

In 1996, Vincent Desiderio became the first American artist to receive the prestigious International Prize of Contemporary Art presented by the Monaco-based Prince Pierre Foundation.

Beginning January 7th., three exhibitions, Motherwell: Works On Paper, Juan Genovès: Works On Paper and Still Lifes: Prints & Photographs will be on view continuing through the month of January, 1998.

MARLBOROUGH GALLERY

40 West 57th Street, New York, NY 10019

www.marlboroughgallery.com