But then Gaia, the Earth, came into being
September 22–October 22, 2022
Andrea Francolino’s first solo show at Mazzoleni features a sequence of antinomies. Curated by Lorenzo Benedetti, the show offers, on the one hand, a mapping of the artist’s journeys across different lands; on the other hand, it presents an attentive recording of the ground’s minimal traces.
This dialectic between micro and macro generates a tension in the scenery. As in Zeno’s first paradox (“If there are many, they must be as many as they are and neither more nor less than that. But if they are as many as they are, they would be limited. If there are many, things that are are unlimited. For there are always others between the things that are, and again others between those, and so the things that are are unlimited”) the philosopher underlines the contradiction of multiplicity, Francolino shows infinity through a small crack in the wall as well as through the great outlines of oceanic shores or mountain chains.
This everyday continuous duality emerges in the works on display. Natural elements and research journeys become irregular shapes that reflect organic strains, entropic fractals spreading across the surrounding space, with the potentially infinite pathways and cracked surfaces.
The artist tries to make sense of this unpredictability in his series of glass works Caso x caos x infinite variabili (Chance x Chaos x Infinite Variables) in which the crack is replicated in its original scale, generating a relationship between the natural and the artificial in the attempt to reconstruct the track of an unpredictable line. Each crack has its own shape as each itinerary is unique and unreproducible.
Francolino pays tribute to that force of nature that marks—and draws—the surrounding space: whether it is a crack on the public street in front of the gallery, or the faults separating the Earth’s tectonic plates.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a bilingual catalogue with a critical text by Lorenzo Benedetti.
Mazzoleni, Turin
Andrea Francolino: But then Gaia, the Earth, came into being
September 22–October 22, 2022
Piazza Solferino, 2, Turin (Italy)
Opening times: Tuesday–Saturday 10am–1pm & 3:45–7:15pm / Sunday and Monday by appointment.
