Giovanni Oberti • 8
show by Giovanni Oberti and texts by Chiara Agnello and Elio Grazioli
From 15.09 to 30.10.2010
Giovanni Oberti’s solo exhibition at Careof represents a new attempt by the artist to visualize, through refined and silent signs, the constant passage of matter from one state to another, the relationship between the elements that inhabit the space, the layering of memory, the internal chronology of things.
“I investigate the place through the flow of time, I record the solitude of the walls, I condense the freshness of the gray floor into a fragile form composed of a layering of water and dust,” emphasizes the artist.
From September 15 to October 30, three interventions take shape in the exhibition space, creating micro events. A small neon in the shape of an eight stands out on one of Careof’s large walls. Its brightness seems to animate its sinuous shape, which recalls the hourglass, but also the Möbius Strip (or Lemniscate), a symbol of eternity and infinity.
Through the use of several dehumidifiers running continuously, Oberti then collects the moisture present in the space and returns it by creating, daily and regularly, a large puddle of water. This generates a perpetual cycle where everything transforms only to return to its original state: the water spilled on the floor evaporates and is collected by the dehumidifiers to be spilled again.
In the center of the space, he places the sculpture Senza titolo (Piedistallo per polvere), an irregular pedestal about 2 meters high designed to collect the dust that will settle on its upper surface for the duration of the exhibition.
Oberti’s action dialogues with a refined intervention by critic and curator Elio Grazioli, who conceives a text for the project in the form of an artwork.
Publication on the exhibition of Giovanni Oberti with texts by Chiara Agnello and Elio Grazioli
With the contribution of Fondazione Cariplo
Bio
Giovanni Oberti (1982, Bergamo) lives and works between Bergamo and Milano.
Selected solo shows: 2009: Placentarium, a cura di Marinella Paderni, Placentia Arte, Piacenza. 2007: L, Libreria Ars A+L, Bergamo.
Selected group shows: 2010: L’unico / The only one, a cura di Julia Trolp, Studio Tommaseo, Trieste; Soffio, a cura di Luciano Passoni e Mauro Zanchi, Basilica di S. Maria Maggiore, Bergamo; No where now here, a cura di Saretto Cincinelli e Alessandro Sarri, Casa Masaccio, S.Giovanni Valdarno. 2009: Il raccolto d’autunno è stato abbondante, a cura di Chiara Agnello e Milovan Farronato. 2008: Area d’Azione 6, a cura di Roberto Daolio, sedi varie, Imola; Reworking dissent, a cura di Stefano Romano, Rotor Gallery, Göteborg.