A Change is Gonna Come
Solo exhibition
Marco Pezzotta (1985) Curated by Bogomir Doringer
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The artistic interest from Marco Pezzotta lays in examining different systems in which our identity is being either formed or changed. We stand in those systems as individuals or as part of a group. For describing and shaping these relations Marco Pezzotta uses objects that function as tools for a narrative. They appear from another space and time, floating between digital and physical. The artist creates a fragmented narrative in which we, audience with own references and input, are a necessary factor for the comprehension of the work. Our task is to discover the systems that we observe and in which we are placed: sometimes the aim is to re-organize them, in order to recognize them.
Marco Pezzotta, is an Italian born artist currently based in Berlin. He graduated at the Academy of fine Arts in Milan and at the KHB Berlin Weißensee. He has been artist in residence in South Korea and at the Museums Quartier in 2013. The same year he also participated as part of the well-received exhibition FACELESS. He is back in Vienna to open his solo exhibition coming directly from Pakistan, where he has been hosted by Vasl, the only Pakistani non-profit organization for contemporary art.
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At Schleifmühlgasse 12-14, 6 art-works are gathering us in a narrative process that “celebrates togetherness” as Marco Pezzotta proclaims in his recently published statement. He is engaging us, with this exhibition, in his new methodology of storytelling.
A large format drawing titled Regenerate features a system composed by 4 artworks. From a well-chosen position one could grasp a feeling of a fragmented New Years Eve scene. In the back you could imagine the distorted song “A Change is Gonna Come” playing; or hear a sound of tinkling glasses. There is a table holding two stem-glasses, both labeled in gold with the number 2000. We might be waiting or being entering the much-hyped year of new beginnings, prosperity and development: the year 2000. Next to it lie two tongues sculpted in an engaging kiss. This kiss suggests human presence and a relationship that the artist understands as a self-defining process. The iconic SKY channel logo is split in two parts resembling a video games “access keys”. Not by coincidence those objects are displayed on a drawing showing an older man and a younger boy in conversation. This drawn surface is documenting another historical moment where the elder transforms an experience or knowledge into the future for the benefit of the younger generation.
On the main wall behind the table hangs a stereotypically exotic image of an African sunset. Because of the color combination (when viewed upside down) it resembles the German flag. The image evokes the presence of Western power involved in shaping global identity. The urge for exporting and consuming exoticism has created problematic archetypes, which always resurface in critical time. A surreal scenery is created by sensitive, smaller format objects, calling upon sympathetic matters.
1. Regenerate is a drawing portraying two silicon statues from the Natural History Museum of Vienna. This multiple level of narration; from the creator who imagined and designed those statues in order to let the viewer develop his/her own empathy and narrative experience, was the main trigger to produce this drawing. The drawing complies with academic aesthetic and contemporary imagery such as manga cartoons, western comics, Internet graphic… With this drawing the artist adds a layer to the tale. It works as a self-generating system, exactly as men are trying to understand themselves by producing stories (or history). The represented scene is a tale in which a generational hand-over is happening: an elder person is transmitting his own experience to the next generation.
2. 4000 is a double objet-trouvé. A pair of golden engraved stem glasses with the number 2000 once used to welcome in the warmly awaited Millennium: the year of change and better days or the nowadays future. From a distance measured through time these objects have an archaeological value, ever since the reverberation of their midnight toast sound had disappeared. Fifteen years later they are now signs of deluded hope and a speculation on the human need for hope or direction. They may intend a chance to re-measure time through a sum that would bring the temporal value to 4000.
3. Handoff. Just as saying “from hand to hand” or “from generation to generation”. Kissing is another way of communication that uses tongue as a tool to experience the other person; to taste and to define him/her.
4. Non-terrestrial Access Keys. The artist recently spent a residency period in Karachi, Pakistan. Much to his surprise, the image created by Western media was quite different to the experienced reality. Soon he realized that notorious TV and News Companies such as CNN or BBC are quite infamous there, due to the way they portray the sub-continent. On his request, two bronze plates were produced at the local market using sand casting technique. As access keys in a video game they are a puzzle element when put together in the correct way show the logo of Sky channel. They are keys to the non-terrestrial TV; keys to the sky. One could see them as an archaeological object that is a document from the fabrication of history.
5. Safari shows a printed digital image of an African sunset; or at least of the stereotypical image normally associated with Africa and Safaris. Those images always have the same structure, with black shapes contrasting a red/yellow gradient sky. This upside-own image, viewed from a distance, reveals the structure of a German flag.
6. Content Aware Fill. Adobe Photoshop software features an option that examines the contents of your image trying to figure out the best way to remove or repair unwanted area. This project started with a tattoo on the artist’s leg showing the Disney’s Lion King character Scar (but without his mane). The Lion King gave a shared image of Africa, exoticism, and otherness to the artist’s generation, by including a post-colonial iconography. The tattoo is exhibited through two laser engraved images on black acrylic glass on which the artist is seated on a bike in an eroticized manner. Those images have been taken in collaboration with the collective DW2♥♥8 (http://2008daughters.tumblr.com). As the function ‘Content Aware Fill’ offers, the innocence of a childhood memory has been displaced once the adult conceive the veiled post-colonial identity implemented by the cartoon.
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