Inches, Feet, Verse, Metre is an exhibition, a public program and a party but, most important, it is the conclusion of the New York Prize residency as a gathering of people and experiences that Ludovica Carbotta and Sara Enrico have encountered while in New York.
Falsetto (Ludovica Carbotta) and à terre, en l’air (Sara Enrico), the projects they will present for the exhibition, underlining the closeness of their practices as well as the differences, emerged from their dialogues during the residency at ISCP, International Studio & Curatorial Program, in Brooklyn.
The architectural space of Marsèlleria will be understood as a panorama where the narrative and fictional approach of Carbotta’s practice will bounce towards the more abstract and rhythmical Enrico’s gaze. This horizontal landscape will extend furthermore inviting two writers/curators for an open dialogue and hosting and including images, words and sounds of other artists. Ludovica and Sara asked their peers to present a selection of their works, shaping a playlist that condenses common interests. In each of these contributions the passage between different languages describes and evokes landscapes where a detail becomes the whole, fictitious stories help to visualize things that do not exist in physical reality, or things we are yet to see or experience, and ambiguous characters perform odd and intimate relationships with their proximal environment. (…)
Enrico’s project, à terre, en l’air, focuses on action between these two basic elements with archetypal gestures and movements. In the language of dance, the term à terre indicates steps performed on the ground, while en l’air indicates steps performed detaching yourself from the floor. Her sculptures suggest memories of bodies through the surface, the posture and their juxtaposition in space, in an attempt to imitate a certain human behavior. She considers the work as a playful and curious exercise for the gaze, obtained by the alchemical possibilities given by the combination of processes and materials used. Our perception follows the “haptic” quality, a notion used by Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari, describing a kind of visuality that differentiates itself from optics because it is mediated by touch, a visuality that entails a reorganization of the sensory, sensible sphere.
Enrico’s and Carbotta’s practices share a similar attitude on the use and the choice of materials deriving from painting and sculptural processes; moreover, both their works reflect, even if in different ways, on how design relates to the body. In Enrico’s practice the design explores the potentialities of a surface in relation to its own body and context, often taking inspiration from tailoring and textile vocabulary. The physical presence of these works, using together canvas, oil colors, concrete, fabric or digital print, is reflected in the tactile perception of their abstract forms that evoke a certain anthropomorphism. (…)
A textual dialogue has been conceived by Rosario Güildares and Sarah Rifky as ongoing writing within the exhibition’s month and available during the duration of the show via google doc (here in Media & Link).
In the frame of the exhibition is been presented an evening of films, audios and texts by Andrea Alis Respino, Belle Bassin, Ludovica Carbotta and Francesca Colussi, Danilo Correale, Teresa Cos, Sara Enrico, Carolina Fusilier, Adelita Husni Bey, Vytautas Jurevičius, Luisa Kasalicky and Siegfried Zaworka, Olli Keränen, Maria Lalou, Jason Loebs, Falk Messerschmidt, Joseph Montgomery, Bridget Moser, Rasmus Nilausen, Luigi Presicce, Leonor Serrano Rivas, Francesco Simeti, Iiu Susiraja, Byron Westbrook.
New York Prize 2018 with the support of the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation (MAECI), the Italian Ministry of Cultural Heritage and Activities and Tourism (MIBACT), the Italian Cultural Institute in New York and the Italian Academy for Advanced Studies – Columbia University.
Excerpt of the Press Release
