At the occasion of TheMerode Art Salon, the Italian curator will unfold the works of Ugo Carmeni and Maurizio Donzelli respectively working on photography and textiles.
On top of their nationality, Daniela Ferretti and the two artists have in common their roots as they all studied architecture before turning to the arts.
Ugo Carmeni’s works look at Venice through the interpretive key of “mapping time”: the passing of time that changes the surfaces as it flows over them, but also the time of perception of the sculptures, architectures and colours of the lagoon city by those who experience it.
For the second exhibition, we will discover the approach of Maurizio Donzelli to making art that is rooted in philosophical considerations of the nature of perception, and how visual phenomena such as colour, images, and art itself affect the way we see and understand reality. He considers drawing both an intellectual and technical pursuit, and it is central to his practice. Donzelli’s work also features mirrors, which he sees as symbols of the process of perception.
The two exhibitions will open on January 22nd and will be visible until March 8th. No booking is required, walk-in only.
speaker
Daniela Ferretti, an architect specialising in exhibition design, has organised over 250 exhibitions for public and private organisations and institutions in Venice and elsewhere since 1977, in collaboration with some of the leading critics and art historians in Italy and abroad. Among the institutions with which she has collaborated are the Venice Biennale, the Scuderie del Quirinale the Galleria Borghese in Rome, the CCCB in Barcelona, the Hayward Gallery in London, the Reina Sofia in Madrid, the Haus der Kunst in Munich, the Pushkin Museum in Moscow, the Musée d'Orsay in Paris and the Palazzo Grassi in Venice. In addition to exhibition design, her professional experience also extends to the curating and overall organisation of exhibitions.
She was head of the Ufficio Allestimenti in the Department of Culture of the City of Venice, and in 1996 she became coordinator of the Servizio Mostre ed Allestimenti Espositivi at the Direzione dei Civici Musei Veneziani. From 2007 to 2019, she directed the Fortuny Museum. In 2008 she became a member of the board of the Maeght Foundation in S.Paul de Vence, and since 2019 she has been a member of the board of the Fondazione dell'Albero d'Oro.
speaker
Ugo Carmeni (Conegliano 1976), a visual artist trained as an architect, lives and works in Venice. He investigates spatial perceptions and their application to the field of art, with particular attention to installation. Colourism, space and time, orientation and disorientation are typical themes of his work – also informed by his interest, as a researcher, in pre-Renaissance maps, Egyptian cartography and pre-photographic methods. His photographs have a strong textural presence, also due to the hand-made
application of a wax coat to his prints on cotton paper.
His collaborations with international artists and architects (especially Marco Maggi and Sarah Sze) in the context of the Venice Biennale and other events had a major influence on his artistic journey – which took him, among other cities, to London, Paris, Madrid, San Francisco and New York. He has presented his work in various museums, foundations and galleries in Italy and abroad, working with curators such as Daniela Ferretti and Živa Kraus.
speaker
Maurizio Donzelli lives and works in Brescia, his hometown.
He taught the Theory of Perception and Psychology of Color at the Accademia di Belle Arti Santagiulia in Brescia. He produces drawings, paintings, textiles, sculptures, and installations through which he seeks the meeting point of the real world, our perception of it, and its artistic representations. His approach to making art is rooted in philosophical considerations of the nature of perception, and how visual phenomena such as colour, images, and art itself affect the way we see and understand reality.
He considers drawing both an intellectual and technical pursuit, and it is central to his practice. Donzelli’s work also features mirrors, which he sees as symbols of the process of perception. With their simultaneous ability to reflect and distort, they also mirror our variable and inevitably inexact comprehension of the surrounding world.
