Pier Paolo Calzolari — Another

Exhibition

Sculpture, mixed media

Pier Paolo Calzolari
Another

Past: September 14 → October 26, 2013

For his first exhibition at galerie kamel mennour, Pier Paolo Calzolari will make use of both exhibition spaces: a collection of mostly older works will be shown in the gallery on the rue Saint-André des arts, while the artist will be inaugurating the new space in the rue du Pont de Lodi with works that are largely recent.

An emblematic figure in the Italian contemporary art scene and part of the Arte Povera movement, since the 1960s Pier Paolo Calzolari has developed an unusual œuvre based on the use of certain recurring materials: tobacco leaves, salt, fire, frost, copper and lead. They play a role in a very personal universe distinguished by a hermetic and alchemical poetry, where each material is subject to transformations, but also causes them. Salt and ice conserve, but sometimes they can also burn like fire. And frost, produced by ancient fridge motors, enveloping sheets of metal like a virus, evokes the whiteness of Venetian marble reflecting the midday sun.

The art of Pier Paolo Calzolari is inspired by a Franciscan vision of the world, which seeks to establish an equal relationship between beings — be they human or animal. So much so that effects of horizontality have become hallmarks of his work, reminiscent for some of a theatre stage. In a Calzolari exhibition, each work competes to establish the thread of a drama, dream or mystery — in the medieval sense of the word. This theatrical dimension unfolds in strange performances peopled with albino animals, but also with sculptures. Calzolari has often compared his work to a temple in which the sculptures were “never envisaged as a finished act […], but rather as different parts of an organism that spark a conversation”. This explains why each element of these exhibitions takes the form of a dreamlike ceremony — indeed, it is all about capturing a dream. “When the dreamer dies,” the artist asks himself, “what happens of the dream?”

Born in 1943 in Bologna, Pier Paolo Calzolari lives and works in Fossombrone, Italy. His work has been shown in numerous solo exhibitions. he has taken part in various international biennales, such as: 39th, 44th and 52nd Biennale di Venezia (IT), as well as VII Biennale de Paris (FR), XII Biennal de São Paulo, São Paulo (BR), Documenta IX and Documenta V, Kassel (DE). His work is currently on view at Fondazione Prada, Venice (IT).

  • Opening Saturday, September 14, 2013 2 PM → 7 PM
06 St Germain Zoom in 06 St Germain Zoom out

47, rue Saint-André des arts
6, rue du Pont de Lodi

75006 Paris

T. 01 56 24 03 63 — F. 01 40 46 80 20

www.kamelmennour.com

Odéon
Saint-Michel

Opening hours

Tuesday – Saturday, 11 AM – 7 PM

The artist

  • Pier Paolo Calzolari