BRUTAL OR BEAUTIFUL_L’indiscreto fascino della materia
INSTALLATION VIEWS
_Da Michelanegelo alla contemporaneità
Da Michelangelo alla contemporaneità | THOMAS GRÜNFELD
werden. from Michelangelo to…
Tiroler Landesmuseum Ferdinandeum, Innsbruck
| 03.12.2021 – 18.04.2022
Studio Tito Conti, oil on canvas, cm 20×30, 2017
Naturale/artificiale (particolare), oil on canvas, 2018
_Momento zero
Momento zero | 7 ottobre-18 novembre | White Noise Gallery | Roma
Curated by Eleonora Aloise e Carlo Maria Lolli Ghetti
http://whitenoisegallery.it/en/mostra/momento-zero-en/
Reviews:
http://www.collezionedatiffany.com/autunno-galleria-ottobre-2017/
https://artecracy.eu/pietro-manzo-momento-zero/
https://romaitalialab.it/terra/pietro-manzo-scenari-senza-traccia-umana
MOMENTO ZERO
The new project shown by Pietro Manzo at White Noise Gallery will push to the very limit his research on environment and its relationship with the viewer’s mind.
The views populating his works seem absolute and universal, almost dystopian. They reflect the look of modern urban conglomerations and feel like déjà-vu: familiar but sinisterly indefinable.
Images that go from microscopic to monumental format, created to be observed from afar, sometimes even protected with actual nail trenches. Post-cards of places where everybody went but no one has ever lived.
The result of the research that Pietro Manzo is presenting for his exhibition is as important as a revolution, conceptual more than stylistic. Instead of portraying city views, where human beings added structures creating a new paradigm of natural morphology, the artist recreated uncontaminated landscapes.
Starting from images of places where human intervention was strong to the point of being invisible –marble mines, bridges, viaduct- Manzo intervenes taking the views back to their moment zero.
Layers of oil panting on top of photographs get deposited with the sole intention of erasing human intervention on the environment. The artist restores a millenary balance hiding the painful traces of our passage under veils of colour.
What is astounding about Pietro Manzo’s works is the ambiguity -eco of the interventions of Land-Art from the1960’s- that exists between artificial gesture and natural state. The side of a mountain seems like an unnatural screen on top of the majesty of a marble cave. Each work on show is the discordant portrait of an uncorrupted nature, almost unbelievable because of the lack of any kind of civilization, an inconceivable condition for the modern man.
The relationship of Pietro Manzo with the territory is always more tight, physical, to the point of becoming not only an aesthetical connection but also tangible. Like Richard Long’s stones, the artist brings in the gallery the same stone fragments he takes from the gutted mountains. Oil paintings on marble sheets, cave scraps or forensic proofs of murders accomplished in utter indifference.
The project room hosts a sequence of fractals, on which is painted the image of the mountain where they come from. A synecdoche, single drops of blood that contain the whole DNA.
_Spettri del visibile
Spettri del visibile | 1 aprile-22 aprile 2017 | Studio MDT Prato
_TU 35 / 2016 – GEOGRAFIE DELL’ARTE EMERGENTE IN TOSCANA
_Bocs Art – Residenza artistica Cosenza – 2016
_TU35 FIRENZE #1 GEOGRAFIE DELL’ARTE EMERGENTE IN TOSCANA
_2000 Maniacs – The Big Instant Painting Show
Point of view pitture imperfette
_POINT OF VIEW pitture imperfette
curated by Gino Pisapia,
Galleria Fuori Campo, Siena
Group show:
Pietro Manzo, Giovanni Oberti, Sara Enrico, Helena Hladilov
_Archivio di un viaggio durato due anni
Premio Combat 2013
Livorno Museo Civico Giovanni Fattori
_ Senza mistero sei come tutti gli altri
La Rincorsa della Lepre 2012
un progetto di Massimo Ricciardo
Brolo/Piraino/Ficarra/Sant’Angelo di Brolo
PRIVACY
Asilo Nido/Gliaca di Piraino Italy
Group show:
Gedske Ramlow, Pietro Manzo, Vincenzo Estremo, Adriano la Licata, Flash15 Renato Leotta/Fabbrizio Cosenza
ENG/ Without mystery you are like all the others, drawings on the wall, 2012.
The project created for the exhibition “Privacy”, explores the relationship between space and memory.
How many times have we revisited a place years later and everything seemed different, smaller, larger or stranger? The memory of a place that is imprinted in our minds becomes autonomous from reality and our “visions” are a reconstruction that no longer matches the real physical space.
“Without mystery you are like all the others” comes from the desire to remake a path, a personal journey into space and the stories that map a route through life. The areas of investigation are the beds where the artist slept and created a link with a specific location, making it a sort of temporary home. Drawings made from memory become a means to rebuild and rethink what has remained alive in my personal history.
ITA/Senza misteri sei come tutti gli altri, disegni su carta montati su muro, 2012. Il progetto realizzato in occasione della mostra Privacy, indaga il rapporto spazio/ricordo. Quante volte abbiamo rivisitato un posto a distanza di anni e tutto ci è sembrato diverso, più piccolo, grande o estraneo? Il ricordo di un luogo che rimane impresso nella nostra mente, spesso è autonomo dalla realtà, e le nostre “visioni” sono una ricostruzione che non corrisponde con lo spazio fisico.
Senza misteri sei come tutti gli altri, nasce dalla volontà di rifare un percorso, un viaggio personale tra spazi e storie che sono la mappatura di un tragitto “deciso dalla vita”. L’area di indagine sono i letti dove l’artista ha dormito e creato il legame con un preciso luogo, facendolo diventare una sorta di casa temporanea. I disegni realizzati a memoria diventano così un mezzo per ricostruire e ripensare a ciò che rimane vivo solo nella nostra storia personale.
Two beds and Albert Einstein, pencil on paper, cm 35×50, 2012
_ Souvenir/why here?
54°Biennale of Venice Padiglione Accademie, 2011
a cura di Vittorio Sgarbi
Group show, Lo stato dell’arte/Artisti dalle Accademie d’Italia
Venezia 2011
Souvenir/ why here
Oil on canvas cm 85×230
Post card stand with 64 paintings oil on aluminium, cm 10×15 and 15×10.
The post card stand focuses on images tha I have accumulated over a period of two years. The building sites are all under judicial seizure (frozen) for various irregularities in Campania, Calabria, Toscana, Lombardia.
The canvas subject focuses on a place under construction with stopped works from several years.
_Utopia
Group exhibition, Utopia, Palazzo Corsini, Firenze, 2011
Why here, olio su tela, cm 85×230, 2011- chiodi su pavimento, superficie cm85x230
ENG/The subject of the work refers to a large area under construction near Florence. The School for Police in central Italy. For several irregularities the entire site was placed under seizure(frozen). The installation is a reflection on the image and its hypothetical reflection. Below the painting in exposure, a portion of the floor (with the picture size) was occupied by about 1000 nails with the tips pointing upwards. The result was a “wound”. An inaccessible area that prevented the approach to the work and the people were physically forced to stay out of it.
ITA/Il soggetto dell’opera riguarda una grande area in costruzione nei pressi di Firenze. La scuola per Carabinieri del centro Italia. A causa di irregolarità l’intero sito è stato posto sotto sequestro giudiziario. L’istallazione è una riflessione sull’immagine e il suo ipotetico riflesso. Sotto al quadro in esposizione, una porzione di pavimento delle stesse dimensioni, era occupata da circa 1000 chiodi con le punte rivolte verso l’alto. Il risultato era una “una ferita”. Un area inaccessibile che impediva l’avvicinamento all’opera e obbligava fisicamente a rimanerne fuori.
_Under Construction
Solo show, Pah! Project, Rue de Zaehringen Ch-Fribourg, 2011
ENG/ Pietro Manzo’s works tries to reflect the sourroundings and visual impressions of our ever changing circumstances. These strong changes seem to be a caracteristic of our time and of course everything around us is in constant movement! We ourselves are effected by the creations we impose on our environment. The interaction between a space and what is happening inside that space is what interest for Manzo.
Are instability and incompletion a reflection of our time?
Using images of our environment and our times he has tried to answer this question, by painting the mutation of urban spaces and often the total desolation of abandonaded buildings and building sites, he has tried to capture an answer.
The dominating perspectives and the linear stratification become the means to illustrate these forces of transformation, this painted impression could be seen as a metaphor for a world in constant construction.
ITA/ IL lavoro è una riflessione sul circostante, sul continuo mutare che caratterizza il nostro tempo. Tutto intorno a noi è in costruzione. Noi stessi siamo in continua trasformazione, il nostro corpo assume forme ed estetiche diverse. L’identità stessa, in quanto individuazione perde ogni punto di riferimento. L’instabilità e il non finito riflettono la nostra epoca? Il mio lavoro attraverso l’esperienza quotidiana ritrae il divenire degli spazi urbani. Prende in prestito l’efficacia della prospettiva e la stratificazione esecutiva per affermare la forza della trasformazione. Metafora che include tutti gli aspetti di un tempo in costruzione.
ENG/The work was created in a forest of Fribourg and It’s derived from pratices observed on places under construction. They bind some parts not yet stable during the building construction. During the exhibition there was written on the wall(left image) the address that led people to this place. In this case( right image) is bound a stone, a static element. This reversal was created to be a symbolic element of a constriction that cities and places suffer during the continuous changes.
ITA/L’intervento è stato eseguito in un bosco di Fribourg e deriva da pratiche osservate nei cantieri edili. Si legano alcune parti non ancora stabili degli edifici durante la costruzione. Tra le opere esposte vi era scritto sulla parete(imm.I) l’indirizzo che conduceva lo spettatore in questo luogo. In questo caso (II) a venir legata è una pietra-elemento statico- proprio questo rovesciamento vuole essere simbolico di una costrizione che anche le città e i luoghi subiscono durante i continui mutamenti.
