SMDOT/Contemporary Art is a contemporary art gallery based in Udine, Italy, founded by art curator Stefano Monti, that focuses on representing and showcasing emerging and mid-career artists. The gallery actively seeks new forms of creative expression and focuses its curatorial approach to artworks that are generally content oriented, conceptually based and reflective of our time.
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This month the gallery will host Stefano Spera’s fist solo show anchor points, opening on October 2nd until November 6th, 2021.
Stefano Spera (b. 1983, Monza) is an Italian contemporary visual artist. Stefano Spera _ anchor points _ delves into the relationship between the viewer and the space which the artworks have appropriated, as onlookers become fundamental for the activation of a symbolic thought. This site-specific installation reflects upon the experience of the medium of painting and its multi-dimensionality, the space inhabited by the artworks becomes a space of both internal and external reflection. “This is a space of passage, something in between, an empty box, which always allows for the possibility of movement, inviting us to constantly be in motion, a threshold from which to enter and exit, a filter in which to leave traces that lay between the real and the virtual”, explains Monti.
Spera is also interested in adapting mythology into his symbolism, as is the case for The Net (Hermes), whereby a painting of a classical bust of Hermes by Praxiteles is painted on a triangular panel and set against the corner of the gallery, creating an alteration of the space that in turn alters our visual habits. By simultaneously closing and opening our gaze, Spera creates a link with our memory and imagination, generating a new way with with our view can navigate the space.
The gallery space is fitted with anchor points, which give their name to the exhibition, that resemble Google Maps directional arrows, positioned in a way that allude to the documenting of traces and also to resist the urge to follow anchor points, to practice looking for different anchor points in order to truly see reality in its full complexity.
