22.05 – 9.07.2009
Laboratorio Saccardi – Il primo giorno di Felicità
curated by Laura Barreca
On Thursday 21 May Antonio Colombo presents Il primo giorno di felicità, the new solo show by Laboratorio Saccardi, in collaboration with Velan Centro d’Arte Contemporanea of Turin. The two shows in Milan and Turin are part of a single itinerary, containing works produced by the group from Palermo over the last two years.
Entitled The first day of happiness, the project contains two nuclei of works: a group of 150 drawings on paper (Black Silk Stocking/part one, 2007-2009) and a group of paintings, in medium and large formats. The drawings, shown at the Velan in Turin, represent esoteric themes, crossing a territory of more or less erudite references, to the history of art, but also to crime news and astrology. This work is based on research on certain places and historical personalities of the world of magic. One of the most important, in this survey, is the English master of the occult Aleister Crowley, who lived in the late 1800s and early 1900s in Cefalù, at the Abbey of Thelema. Crowley has also fascinated many contemporary musicians, including David Bowie and Ozzy Osbourne, thanks to his theories on the practice of magic.
The group of paintings shown by Antonio Colombo, in Milan, opens a new chapter in the Saccardi saga, with the usual vein of irony, but also with greater depth of content and subjects. This exhibition, in fact, marks a turning point in the recent research of the group from Palermo. A series of paintings narrates a path of religious, civic and historical knowledge, a whole that, as in the work of Boetti, contains the idea of the world and its history, from the celestial origins to the fall of the giants (the Twin Towers), and in even more utopian terms, from the myth of Atlantis (Atlantide, tutti i frutti, 2009) to the Gomorrah of Naples (Gomorra, 2009), by way of the biblical flood, and of what remains of the magnificent period of reflux, the 1980s. A plot of images, stories, references of all kinds, packed with compassion, pop culture, politics, pagan and other myths: all that is required to make the earth move under one’s feet, every time the group gets to work. Not just references to the foibles of the contemporary world, but an a-moralistic, merciless vision of existence, grotesque and captivating, to the point of convulsion, inside compositions of great breadth in which to find the seeds of the forecast second fall of the Western Empire.
LABORATORIO SACCARDI: Marco Barone: born in Palermo in 1978; Giuseppe Borgia: born in Palermo in 1978; Vincenzo Profeta: born in Palermo in 1977; Tothi Folisi: born at Sant‘Agata Militello (ME) in 1979. All the artists live and work in Palermo.
Solo shows: 2007 Donna/Woman, Francesco Pantaleone Arte Contemporanea, Palermo; 2006 Ionico,Ionico, Ionico, Spazio A.K.A., Rome; Ok Computer, Galerie Van Gelder, Amsterdam; Collezione primavera/estate 2006, Galleria Boxart, Verona; La candida, Zelleartecontemporanea, Palermo; La Biennale di Venezia, Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea, Milan; 2004 L’occasione fa l’uomo ladro, Nifca Institute, Helsinki; B.O.T.O.L.A., Facoltà d’ingegneria idraulica, Palermo, Obnubilante, Area contemporanea, Palermo; 2003 Tributo a Pier Antonio Caffi, Assocazione Culturale Litania, Palermo; Laboratorio Saccardi remix, Galleria Pantaleone Arte Contemporanea, Palermo; Gaetano Cavallaio, Chiosco dei Decollati, Palermo; 2002 Bubu, Associazione Culturale Ferro e Fuoco, Palermo; Frozen, Monreale.
Main group shows: 2008 Collezione Farnesina – Experimenta, Palazzo della Farnesina, Rome; Premiata Officina Trevana ‘08, Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Palazzo Lucarini Contemporary, Trevi (PG); Arrivi e partenze. Italia, Mole Vanvitelliana, Ancona; Bateau Ivre, Azienda Agricola Icario, Montepulciano (SI); 2007 Arcani Maggiori, Antonio Colombo Arte Contemporanea, Milan; 2006 Regarding facts, Galerie Van Gelder, Amsterdam; Arte & Sud, Castello Normanno, Acicastello (CT) – Villa Fortuna, Acitrezza (CT); Videopassport, Palazzo Ziino, Palermo; Sicilia!, Galleria del Credito Siciliano, Acireale; Avaria, in the context of the Biennale Adriatica d’Arti Nuove, S. Benedetto Del Tronto; Swimming Pool Xpò – Arte in Piscina a Milano, Piscina Romano, Milan; 2005 Altri fantasmi, Ermanno Tedeschi Gallery, Galleria In Arco, Gagliardi Art System Gallery, Turin, curated by Laura Carcano and Norma Mangione; Il Genio di Palermo, VI ed., Palermo, curated by Eva Di Stefano; Senza Dubbio, l’arte torna a scuola, for the Trentesima Biennale d’Arte di Trissino, scuola media A. Fogazzaro, Trissino (VI), curated by Marco Cingolani; Premio Cairo 2005, Palazzo della Permanente, Milano, finalist; Beauty Not so Difficult, Fondazione delle Stelline, Milan, curated by Marco Cingolani – Italian Cultural Institute, Berlin; ANIMArTION a play list of video art animation, Galleria Sogospatty, Rome, curated by Raffaele Gavarro; SerrOne, Biennalegiovani, Serrone della Villa Reale, Monza, curated by Luca Beatrice, Martina Corgnati, Gianluca Marziani, Marco Meneguzzo and Marisa Vescovo; PragueBiennale2 Expanded Painting / Acción Directa, Karlin Hall, curated by G. Politi and H. Kontova; II° Edizione Premio Gallo, Pastificio Antonio Mario Gallo, Valle D’Olmo, Palermo; 2004 Senza Freni! Galleria Antonio Colombo, Milan; XXXVII premio Vasto d’arte contemporanea, Vasto; Premio Gallo, Pastificio Antonio Mario Gallo, Valle d’Olmo, Palermo; Il genio di Palermo, Palermo; Passport, Cantieri culturali della Zisa, Palermo; 2003 Document, Cantieri culturali della Zisa, Palermo; 2002 Oggetti d’uso comune come la forchetta, Ristorante l’Ottangolo, Palermo
