Progettoarte Elm announces the next exhibition to be held from 29 October until the end of 2020. On view, the solo show by artist Paolo Grassino, which explores the concept of fragments (“frantumi”) in relation to human lives and contemporary society.
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Progettoarte Elm Gallery is a contemporary art gallery based in Milan. The artistic mission of the gallery is characterized by the will to contribute to the promotion of works by established and emerging contemporary artists. The gallery’s focus is mainly centered upon the works of Italian artists who have given an important contribution to the history of art and who have gained visibility within the international art market.
The gallery offers a wide range of artists experimenting different forms of expression: from painters to sculptors investigating the relationship between space and matter, to artists who work with various types of material. Every year, the gallery organizes exhibitions in strict cooperation with the artists and curated by the most important Italian art reviewers. In addition to exhibitions, the gallery also participates in the most important Italian art fairs, like Artefiera, MiArt, and Artissima in Turin.
This week, Progettoarte Elm Gallery inaugurates the new exhibition "Frantumi" by Paolo Grassino, curated by Marco Meneguzzo. Artist Paolo Grassino with his work offers a thought on the drift of the modern society, suspended on the edge between natural and artificial. His work is moreover a research that regains the fullest sense of manual skill: Grassino works with synthetic rubber and polystyrene but also with more traditional materials like wax and solid concrete. With a slow and patient weaving work the artist brings his work to a spectacular level.
Artist Paolo Grassino was born in 1967 in Turin, where he currently lives and works. Among the most prestigious exhibitions is the show Madre, at MACRO in Rome and the participation in the Fourth Moscow Biennale, both in 2011. In the same year, he took part in international museums exhibitions such as the Frost Art Museum in Miami and the Loft Project ETAGI in St. Petersburg. In 2010, he took part in the anthological exhibition at the Castello di Rivalta (TO) while the previous year he took part in the Essential Experience exhibition at the RISO museum in Palermo (2009). In 2008, he had a solo exhibition in France at the Saint-Etienne Museum and in the same year he was invited to the XV Quadriennale d'Arte in Rome. In 2005, he created a large installation on the façade of the Fondazione Palazzo Bricherasio in Turin, while in 2000 the GAM dedicated a solo exhibition to him.
In his multiform activity as a sculptor, the fil rouge that links Grassino’s body of work is a sort of constant scenario of war, in which buildings are reduced to rubble and people are shattered. Two men whose heads are crossed by a steel "T" shaped iron beam, with faces struck by fragments of glass, and clothes as tears coming down from the eyes. It seems as if they do not provide foothold for hope, but this is not the case. According to an atavistic view, pain forges character, and suffering feeds consciousness. This undoubtedly questions what is art about, if not awareness of the world? Thus, awareness is dearly paid for, but once its process has been activated, it cannot be stopped - and this is the desirable path of every artist. After all, the little Apocalypse of Grassino finds its redemption not only in the high and Western concept of suffering, but also in the one of "shape", as art is able to recompose the fragments just like a homeopathic cure, by making them visible.
See available works on Kooness by Paolo Grassino.
Cover image: Paolo Grassino, “Frantumi” Exhibition, 2020, Installation view. Photo Credits: Progettoarte Elm.
Written by Maria Eleonora Piva
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