Le contraddizioni della fragilità
Diana Al-Hadid, Alejandro Almanza Pereda, Andrea Galvani, José Carlos Martinat, Matthew Ritchie
Curated by Angel Moya Garcia
Eduardo Secci
Florence, from September 9 to November 6, 2021
Opening: Thursday, September 9, 2021, 4:00 pm
Exhibition view, Le contraddizioni della fragilità, Eduardo Secci Firenze, 2021, Florence, Photo Stefano Maniero, Courtesy the artist and Eduardo Secci
In the gallery spaces in Florence, from September 9 to November 6, 2021, Eduardo Secci is pleased to present the group show “Le contraddizioni della fragilità” (The contradictions of the fragility), curated by Angel Moya Garcia, featuring works by Diana Al-Hadid, Alejandro Almanza Pereda, Andrea Galvani, José Carlos Martinat, and Matthew Ritchie.
The exhibition focuses on the theme of fragility and its declinations, exploring the contradictions that conceal behind its definition analyzing the different contexts where the term has been used: society, culture, economics, science, and philosophy. A series of meanings and interpretations wherein the fragility is considered in its derogatory connotation inviting us to contemplate it as doubt and uncertainty, fail and its acceptance or weakness of our beliefs. This ancestral and hypothetical antagonism caused by the sharp opposition between fragility and stability or durability is questioned by the show pointing out infinite possibilities of mistakes, the superficiality of certain categorical reflections, and prejudices of our principles in chasing absolute objectivity that allows us to reach a definitive emotional, cognitive, and identity stability.
Diana Al-Hadid (1981, Aleppo), whose works are often conceived on a monumental scale, uses different media adopting a layering technique both materials and in cultural meanings, "halfway between a fresco and a tapestry", as she defines them. Her poetics leads the viewer to move along a fleeting border between quotation and identification, memory and contemporaneity, in an inexhaustible sense of contrast and therefore of renewal and questioning.
Destabilizing and informed of its origins, is also the practice of Alejandro Almanza Pereda (1977, Mexico City), who manifests a profound interest in the perception of the concepts of danger and risk in different cultural realities. Materiality is one of its constants which is expressed through the creation of conceptually and physically "risky" objects. These juxtapositions convey a sense of tension with specific investigations on the themes of fragility, value, weight, and power.
Multidisciplinary is the art of Andrea Galvani (1973, Verona), an artist able to range from photography to video, from drawing to sculpture, to sound, to installation architecture, and performance. Through this approach, he examines the relationships between different dialectical correspondences, such as fragility and monumentality, temporality and continuity, visibility and invisibility. His work extends the usual perspectives from the individual to the collective level, contextualizing the human experience within the geological space, cosmic changes and social transformations.
José Carlos Martinat's production (1974, Lima) is dictated by close connections with the social, cultural, and political environment of Latin America. Moving between different genres, he creates a particularly well-known series that has graffiti as its source, which he appropriates through extraction from their places of origin, giving them new life as works of art. In their monumental fragility, they maintain the emotional tension that generated them. The intrinsic instability of their creative nature is reflected in the limbo of dreams, false promises and corruption of the political class and the resulting popular reaction.
Matthew Ritchie (1964, London) roots his own pictorial and installation practice in the languages of science, sociology, anthropology, mythology, and history of art, coming to describe generations of systems, ideas, and their relative interpretations in a sort of cerebral web. The artist concretizes theories of ephemeral and intangible information in a unique and recognizable gestural form, which emphasizes above all traces of the human presence.
The exhibition aims to present itself as an attempt to undermine those peremptory dialectics reaching a compromise in which the daily paradigm changes, the systematic discussions on established principles, and continuous debates coexist, albeit in the balance, and can counter the one-sidedness of what it is fragility. A process that is highlighted by the involved artists through extreme attention to the stratification of materials, the subjectivity of perception, the constant transformation of knowledge, the tensions in social, cultural, and political environments and, finally, to a modality that conveys and consolidates the acceptance of relativity, ephemerality, and ambiguity of our views.
Exhibition view, Le contraddizioni della fragilità, Eduardo Secci Firenze, 2021, Florence, Photo Stefano Maniero, Courtesy the artist and Eduardo Secci
Angel Moya Garcia is the curator and head of programs of the Mattatoio in Rome.
Diana Al-Hadid (1981, Aleppo, Syria) lives and works in New York.
Alejandro Almanza Pereda (1977, Mexico City, Mexico) lives and works in Guadalajara.
Andrea Galvani (1973, Verona, Italy) lives and works in New York and Mexico City.
José Carlos Martinat (1974, Lima, Peru) lives and works in Lima.
Matthew Ritchie (1964, London, England) lives and works in New York.
Eduardo Secci is an Italian gallery founded in 2013 in Florence with a second location in Milan from June 2021. Both spaces present a double program featuring the exhibitions of the main gallery and experimental works by young artists at the project space NOVO.
Eduardo Secci Firenze
Le contraddizioni della fragilità
Diana Al-Hadid, Alejandro Almanza Pereda, Andrea Galvani, José Carlos Martinat, Matthew Ritchie
Curated by Angel Moya Garcia
From September 9 to November 6, 2021
NOVO Firenze
Sfiorare Fantasmi - Bea Bonafini
Curated by Edoardo Monti
From September 9 to November 6, 2021
Piazza Goldoni 2, Florence, Italy
Opening: Thursday, September 9, 2021, 4:00 - 8:00 pm
Hours: Monday - Saturday, 10:00 am - 1:30 pm / 2:30 - 7:00 pm
+39 055 661356 / firenze@eduardosecci.com
Eduardo Secci Milano
Kevin Francis Gray
Curated by Sergio Risaliti
From June 3 to October 2, 2021 (extended)
Online video featuring the exhibition walkthrough with the artist: www.eduardosecci.com/exhibitions/51
Acustica - Alfredo Pirri
Curated by Laura Cherubini
From October 8 to November 20, 2021
NOVO Milano
Radicalization Pipeline - Theo Triantafyllidis
From June 3 to October 2, 2021 (extended)
Online video featuring the exhibition walkthrough with the artist: www.novo.ooo/exhibitions/9-theo-triantafyllidis
limone limone - Radu Oreian
Curated by Pier Paolo Pancotto
From October 8 to November 20, 2021
Via Zenale 3, Milan, Italy
Hours: Monday - Saturday, 10:00 am - 1:30 pm / 2:30 - 7:00 pm
+39 02 38248728 / milano@eduardosecci.com
www.eduardosecci.com / gallery@eduardosecci.com
Instagram / Facebook: @eduardoseccicontemporary
www.novo.ooo / hello@novo.ooo
Instagram: @novo_projects / Facebook: @NOVOprojects
Press Office: THE KNACK STUDIO / Tamara Lorenzi
tamara@theknackstudio.com / +39 347 0712934
info@theknackstudio.com / www.theknackstudio.com
Le contraddizioni della fragilità
Diana Al-Hadid, Alejandro Almanza Pereda, Andrea Galvani, José Carlos Martinat, Matthew Ritchie
Curated by Angel Moya Garcia
Eduardo Secci
Florence, from September 9 to November 6, 2021
Opening: Thursday, September 9, 2021, 4:00 pm
Exhibition view, Le contraddizioni della fragilità, Eduardo Secci Firenze, 2021, Florence, Photo Stefano Maniero, Courtesy the artist and Eduardo Secci
In the gallery spaces in Florence, from September 9 to November 6, 2021, Eduardo Secci is pleased to present the group show “Le contraddizioni della fragilità” (The contradictions of the fragility), curated by Angel Moya Garcia, featuring works by Diana Al-Hadid, Alejandro Almanza Pereda, Andrea Galvani, José Carlos Martinat, and Matthew Ritchie.
The exhibition focuses on the theme of fragility and its declinations, exploring the contradictions that conceal behind its definition analyzing the different contexts where the term has been used: society, culture, economics, science, and philosophy. A series of meanings and interpretations wherein the fragility is considered in its derogatory connotation inviting us to contemplate it as doubt and uncertainty, fail and its acceptance or weakness of our beliefs. This ancestral and hypothetical antagonism caused by the sharp opposition between fragility and stability or durability is questioned by the show pointing out infinite possibilities of mistakes, the superficiality of certain categorical reflections, and prejudices of our principles in chasing absolute objectivity that allows us to reach a definitive emotional, cognitive, and identity stability.
Diana Al-Hadid (1981, Aleppo), whose works are often conceived on a monumental scale, uses different media adopting a layering technique both materials and in cultural meanings, "halfway between a fresco and a tapestry", as she defines them. Her poetics leads the viewer to move along a fleeting border between quotation and identification, memory and contemporaneity, in an inexhaustible sense of contrast and therefore of renewal and questioning.
Destabilizing and informed of its origins, is also the practice of Alejandro Almanza Pereda (1977, Mexico City), who manifests a profound interest in the perception of the concepts of danger and risk in different cultural realities. Materiality is one of its constants which is expressed through the creation of conceptually and physically "risky" objects. These juxtapositions convey a sense of tension with specific investigations on the themes of fragility, value, weight, and power.
Multidisciplinary is the art of Andrea Galvani (1973, Verona), an artist able to range from photography to video, from drawing to sculpture, to sound, to installation architecture, and performance. Through this approach, he examines the relationships between different dialectical correspondences, such as fragility and monumentality, temporality and continuity, visibility and invisibility. His work extends the usual perspectives from the individual to the collective level, contextualizing the human experience within the geological space, cosmic changes and social transformations.
José Carlos Martinat's production (1974, Lima) is dictated by close connections with the social, cultural, and political environment of Latin America. Moving between different genres, he creates a particularly well-known series that has graffiti as its source, which he appropriates through extraction from their places of origin, giving them new life as works of art. In their monumental fragility, they maintain the emotional tension that generated them. The intrinsic instability of their creative nature is reflected in the limbo of dreams, false promises and corruption of the political class and the resulting popular reaction.
Matthew Ritchie (1964, London) roots his own pictorial and installation practice in the languages of science, sociology, anthropology, mythology, and history of art, coming to describe generations of systems, ideas, and their relative interpretations in a sort of cerebral web. The artist concretizes theories of ephemeral and intangible information in a unique and recognizable gestural form, which emphasizes above all traces of the human presence.
The exhibition aims to present itself as an attempt to undermine those peremptory dialectics reaching a compromise in which the daily paradigm changes, the systematic discussions on established principles, and continuous debates coexist, albeit in the balance, and can counter the one-sidedness of what it is fragility. A process that is highlighted by the involved artists through extreme attention to the stratification of materials, the subjectivity of perception, the constant transformation of knowledge, the tensions in social, cultural, and political environments and, finally, to a modality that conveys and consolidates the acceptance of relativity, ephemerality, and ambiguity of our views.
Exhibition view, Le contraddizioni della fragilità, Eduardo Secci Firenze, 2021, Florence, Photo Stefano Maniero, Courtesy the artist and Eduardo Secci
Angel Moya Garcia is the curator and head of programs of the Mattatoio in Rome.
Diana Al-Hadid (1981, Aleppo, Siria) vive e lavora a New York.
Alejandro Almanza Pereda (1977, Città del Messico, Messico) vive e lavora a Guadalajara.
Andrea Galvani (1973, Verona, Italia) vive e lavora a New York e a Città del Messico.
José Carlos Martinat (1974, Lima, Perù) vive e lavora a Lima.
Matthew Ritchie (1964, Londra, Inghilterra) vive e lavora a New York.
Eduardo Secci is an Italian gallery founded in 2013 in Florence with a second location in Milan from June 2021. Both spaces present a double program featuring the exhibitions of the main gallery and experimental works by young artists at the project space NOVO.
Eduardo Secci Firenze
Le contraddizioni della fragilità
Diana Al-Hadid, Alejandro Almanza Pereda, Andrea Galvani, José Carlos Martinat, Matthew Ritchie
Curated by Angel Moya Garcia
From September 9 to November 6, 2021
NOVO Firenze
Sfiorare Fantasmi - Bea Bonafini
Curated by Edoardo Monti
From September 9 to November 6, 2021
Piazza Goldoni 2, Florence, Italy
Opening: Thursday, September 9, 2021, 4:00 - 8:00 pm
Hours: Monday - Saturday, 10:00 am - 1:30 pm / 2:30 - 7:00 pm
+39 055 661356 / firenze@eduardosecci.com
Eduardo Secci Milano
Kevin Francis Gray
Curated by Sergio Risaliti
From June 3 to October 2, 2021 (extended)
Online video featuring the exhibition walkthrough with the artist: www.eduardosecci.com/exhibitions/51
Acustica - Alfredo Pirri
Curated by Laura Cherubini
From October 8 to November 20, 2021
NOVO Milano
Radicalization Pipeline - Theo Triantafyllidis
From June 3 to October 2, 2021 (extended)
Online video featuring the exhibition walkthrough with the artist: www.novo.ooo/exhibitions/9-theo-triantafyllidis
limone limone - Radu Oreian
Curated by Pier Paolo Pancotto
From October 8 to November 20, 2021
Via Zenale 3, Milan, Italy
Hours: Monday - Saturday, 10:00 am - 1:30 pm / 2:30 - 7:00 pm
+39 02 38248728 / milano@eduardosecci.com
www.eduardosecci.com / gallery@eduardosecci.com
Instagram / Facebook: @eduardoseccicontemporary
www.novo.ooo / hello@novo.ooo
Instagram: @novo_projects / Facebook: @NOVOprojects
Press Office: THE KNACK STUDIO / Tamara Lorenzi
tamara@theknackstudio.com / +39 347 0712934
info@theknackstudio.com / www.theknackstudio.com
