Painting that stratifies and contaminates. Double space and double exhibition for Eduardo Secci in Milan
Eduardo Secci’s new -and second- venue in Milan, in via Olmetto 1, opens with a double exhibition, with a special focus on painting that stratifies and contaminates between two exhibition projects, Unmatter – Joshua Hagler, Luisa Rabbia and Maja Ruznic curated by Alberto Fiz and the solo show by Tillman Kaiser in the experimental independent venue NOVO under the artistic direction of Pier Paolo Pancotto. Until 5 August 2022.
From the Renaissance shadow of Santa Maria delle Grazie to the Baroque shadow of Sant’Alessandro in Zebedia, the maze of streets in the Missori district welcomes the new exhibition venue of the Eduardo Secci Gallery, which doubles its Milanese outpost less than a year later. More than 200 square metres dedicated to the contemporary research of international artists gather in the courtyard of Palazzo Casati, barely hinted at by a window overlooking the elegant Via Olmetto. Proceeding in parallel on two exhibition tracks, a classical one and an independent experimental one, the gallery presents the group show Unmatter – Joshua Hagler, Luisa Rabbia and Maja Ruznic, curated by Alberto Fiz, and the solo show by Tillman Kaiser curated by Pier Paolo Pancotto.
Unmatter – Joshua Hagler, Luisa Rabbia and Maja Ruznic, curated by Alberto Fiz
Unmatter, literally ‘non-matter’, a transitory land of shifting boundaries in which individual and collective meet, embrace and lose themselves. The painting, even before the subject, the returned image -figurative or not or barely hinted at-, is the protagonist. Layered, ambiguous and enthralling, the exhibition presents the mostly unpublished works of Joshua Hagler (1979, Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, United States), Luisa Rabbia (1970, Pinerolo, Italy) and Maja Ruznic (1983, Bosnia and Herzegovina) in a visual and emotional interweaving that, despite the linguistic autonomy of each artist, gathers the works into a single choral symphony. In fact, the all-embracing experience of the creative process unites the poetics of the three; this is not a simple collective but a true exhibition project “that has the capacity to express the same attitude towards painting”, explains Alberto Fiz. From Hagler’s broad, mellow backgrounds to the layering of signs and imprints in Luisa Rabbia’s scraped canvases to Ruznic’s interrupted transitions between form and colour, little by little, as when moving from an extremely well-lit outdoor location to an indoor space, the focus reveals assonances and dissonances, in a complex interplay of signs and suggestions in which the material translates and restores the abysses of the inner landscape (Luisa Rabbia), the exploration of 19th century North America, modern science fiction and the traditions of Italian religious art (Joshua Hagler), and the themes of nostalgia and trauma due to the experience of war (Maja Ruznic).
NOVO: Tillman Kaiser, curated by Pier Paolo Pancotto
This is the first solo exhibition in Italy by Tillman Kaiser (b. 1972, Graz, Austria), the exhibition presented in the spaces of NOVO, the independent exhibition project of the Eduardo Secci gallery inaugurated in 2021 and dedicated to experimental contemporary research, whose curatorship for the next two years is entrusted to Pier Paolo Pancotto. Painting, drawing, photography, serigraphy, collage and sculpture make up Kaiser’s work amidst evocations of Futurism and Early Modernism. Symmetrical abstractions in mixed media, oil and watercolour on cyanotypes, photograms and photographs invade the space overlooking Via Olmetto with site-specific installations and sculptures, all produced between 2020 and 2022. A creative process that relies on chance, in which matter is both victim and executioner of the nature that invades and pervades it. Error, in shades of blue, constitutes and reflects the profound freedom with which Tillman approaches artistic creation: the unplanned incidence of light, the different and unpredictable response of a colour with respect to the material on which it is applied, the mixing of refined and humble objects in a set of relationships without a natural or logical connection but exclusively imaginary, perceptive, empathetic, dreamlike. Pier Paolo Pancotto likens the artist’s work to kaleidoscopes that, turned in the direction of a light source, give colourful visions, dynamic and in continuous becoming of reality, distorted, perspectival, two-dimensional, vertiginously infinite in its restitution.
“Echoes of the historical avant-gardes, from Futurism to Constructivism to post-World War II abstract expressionism via Cercle et Carré, surface in his works, confirming the continuous syntactic shift that accompanies the technical one. The reference to early 20th century modernism is reinforced above all by the choice of materials used: consistent and ephemeral at the same time, for example paper or cardboard, which, associated with elements belonging to everyday life, give his works a primordial, almost prototypical character”.
From the critical text by Pier Paolo Pancotto.
Joshua Hagler (1979, Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, United States) lives and works in Roswell, New Mexico, where he moved in 2018 as a grant recipient of the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program. He graduated from the University of Arizona in Tucson with a degree in visual communications. Self-directed research and travel inspire the artist career determining how he integrates creative influences with life experience. He explores subjects including his middle American upbringing, the 19th-century exploration of North America, modern science fiction, and the traditions of Italian religious art. Hagler confronts ideas of extreme religious experience and notions of wider cultural and social identities. He conceives large-format canvases with scenes often distorted by gestural smears of fluid brushwork that enter into realms of abstraction. His paintings, sculptures, videos, and animations have been exhibited internationally: “The Living Circle Us”, curated by David Anfam, Unit London, London, 2021; “Drawing in the Dark”, Cris Worley Fine Arts, Dallas, 2021; “Love Letters to the Poorly Regarded”, Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, 2018; “The River Lethe”, Brand Library & Art Center, Los Angeles, 2018, “With Liberty and Justice for Some”, Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York, 2018; “Dreams and Fevers”, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, 2018, among others. In 2021, he released his first monograph entitled “This is the Picture”. Furthermore, he is also an author of poems and essays.
Joshua Hagler (1979, Mountain Home Air Force Base, Idaho, United States) lives and works in Roswell, New Mexico, where he moved in 2018 as a grant recipient of the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program. He graduated from the University of Arizona in Tucson with a degree in visual communications. Self-directed research and travel inspire the artist career determining how he integrates creative influences with life experience. He explores subjects including his middle American upbringing, the 19th-century exploration of North America, modern science fiction, and the traditions of Italian religious art. Hagler confronts ideas of extreme religious experience and notions of wider cultural and social identities. He conceives large-format canvases with scenes often distorted by gestural smears of fluid brushwork that enter into realms of abstraction. His paintings, sculptures, videos, and animations have been exhibited internationally: “The Living Circle Us”, curated by David Anfam, Unit London, London, 2021; “Drawing in the Dark”, Cris Worley Fine Arts, Dallas, 2021; “Love Letters to the Poorly Regarded”, Roswell Museum and Art Center, Roswell, 2018; “The River Lethe”, Brand Library & Art Center, Los Angeles, 2018, “With Liberty and Justice for Some”, Children’s Museum of the Arts, New York, 2018; “Dreams and Fevers”, Torrance Art Museum, Los Angeles, 2018, among others. In 2021, he released his first monograph entitled “This is the Picture”. Furthermore, he is also an author of poems and essays.
Maja Ruznic (1983, Bosnia and Herzegovina) immigrated to the United States with her family in 1995, settling on the West Coast. She studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and received an MFA from the California College of Arts. Ruznic’s often-quoted biography – a refugee who escaped the Bosnian War – is only the beginning of her journey.
A prolific and active artist, she is primarily a painter, a storyteller who conjures form and narrative from ground up mineral, smeared oil, and stained canvas. Ruznic’s vivid paintings speak for themselves, depicting figures that seem to emerge from the caverns of human history, from within their own supports, and somehow from within the viewer’s own recollections. These paintings breach something intrinsically human and Ruznic guides us deftly with dark humor and complex representations, not dissimilar to Werner Herzog’s wry, but poignant 3-D documentary depicting the oldest painted images in the world.
Among her exhibitions: “Hi Woman! La notizia del futuro”, curated by Francesco Bonami, Museo di Palazzo Pretorio, Prato, 2021; “In the Sliver of the Sun: Maja Ruznic”, Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, 2021; “Parallax: A RAiR Connection Exhibition”, Roswell Museum and Art Center, 2018; “Sincerely Yours”, Torrance Art Museum, 2015. In 2018, she was awarded the Hopper Prize. Various museum collections contain her works, such as the Dallas Art Museum and EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Her work has been written about extensively, most notably in ArtMaze Magazine, Juxtapoz, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Studio Visit Magazine, and twice in New American Paintings, including the cover as selected by curator Anne Ellegood.
Maja Ruznic (1983, Bosnia and Herzegovina) immigrated to the United States with her family in 1995, settling on the West Coast. She studied at the University of California, Berkeley, and received an MFA from the California College of Arts. Ruznic’s often-quoted biography – a refugee who escaped the Bosnian War – is only the beginning of her journey.
A prolific and active artist, she is primarily a painter, a storyteller who conjures form and narrative from ground up mineral, smeared oil, and stained canvas. Ruznic’s vivid paintings speak for themselves, depicting figures that seem to emerge from the caverns of human history, from within their own supports, and somehow from within the viewer’s own recollections. These paintings breach something intrinsically human and Ruznic guides us deftly with dark humor and complex representations, not dissimilar to Werner Herzog’s wry, but poignant 3-D documentary depicting the oldest painted images in the world.
Among her exhibitions: “Hi Woman! La notizia del futuro”, curated by Francesco Bonami, Museo di Palazzo Pretorio, Prato, 2021; “In the Sliver of the Sun: Maja Ruznic”, Harwood Museum of Art, Taos, 2021; “Parallax: A RAiR Connection Exhibition”, Roswell Museum and Art Center, 2018; “Sincerely Yours”, Torrance Art Museum, 2015. In 2018, she was awarded the Hopper Prize. Various museum collections contain her works, such as the Dallas Art Museum and EMMA – Espoo Museum of Modern Art. Her work has been written about extensively, most notably in ArtMaze Magazine, Juxtapoz, San Francisco Bay Guardian, Studio Visit Magazine, and twice in New American Paintings, including the cover as selected by curator Anne Ellegood.
Luisa Rabbia (1970, Pinerolo, Italy) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin, Italy. The artist blends the distinctions made between the human and the natural, expressing solidarity with the cosmos through the organic, bodily landscapes of her expansive paintings. The scale of Rabbia’s paintings suits the themes she explores, oftentimes depicting overlapping abstracted figures joining and breaking apart, seemingly overcoming their physicality. She alludes to interconnected natural processes forming a thread between microcosms and macrocosms and interweaving them in a nebulous primordial state. Continually in flux and transforming, her forms created in expressive hues also evoke spiritual transitions. Upon closer viewing and bringing this substantial work to a more intimate level, her physical and intuitive process becomes visible with its rhythmically scraped paint, the stratification of pencil marks, and imprints of fingertips. Rabbia alludes to the minute traces that each person leaves over the course of a lifetime, yet simultaneously asserts an expansive and interconnected vision of a wider universe.
Among her solo shows: Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires; Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice; Fondazione Merz, Turin. Among group shows: Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, Cold Spring, New York; Manifesta 12, Palazzo Drago, Palermo; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; Biennale del Disegno 2016, Museo della Città, Rimini; Lismore Castle; Shirley Fiterman Art Center, New York; Maison Particulière, Brussels; Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Università di Harvard, Cambridge; Museo del Novecento, Milan; MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome; Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai.
Luisa Rabbia (1970, Pinerolo, Italy) lives and works in Brooklyn, NY. She received her MFA from the Accademia Albertina di Belle Arti in Turin, Italy. The artist blends the distinctions made between the human and the natural, expressing solidarity with the cosmos through the organic, bodily landscapes of her expansive paintings. The scale of Rabbia’s paintings suits the themes she explores, oftentimes depicting overlapping abstracted figures joining and breaking apart, seemingly overcoming their physicality. She alludes to interconnected natural processes forming a thread between microcosms and macrocosms and interweaving them in a nebulous primordial state. Continually in flux and transforming, her forms created in expressive hues also evoke spiritual transitions. Upon closer viewing and bringing this substantial work to a more intimate level, her physical and intuitive process becomes visible with its rhythmically scraped paint, the stratification of pencil marks, and imprints of fingertips. Rabbia alludes to the minute traces that each person leaves over the course of a lifetime, yet simultaneously asserts an expansive and interconnected vision of a wider universe.
Among her solo shows: Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia; Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, Boston; Fundación PROA, Buenos Aires; Fondazione Querini Stampalia, Venice; Fondazione Merz, Turin. Among group shows: Magazzino Italian Art Foundation, Cold Spring, New York; Manifesta 12, Palazzo Drago, Palermo; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; Biennale del Disegno 2016, Museo della Città, Rimini; Lismore Castle; Shirley Fiterman Art Center, New York; Maison Particulière, Brussels; Carpenter Center for the Visual Arts, Università di Harvard, Cambridge; Museo del Novecento, Milan; MAXXI Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome; Museum of Contemporary Art Shanghai.
Tillman Kaiser’s artistic practice combines different languages, including painting, drawing, photography, screen printing, collage and sculpture. His abstract mixed-media work is characterised by symmetrical compositions generated by a repetition and perspective distortion of graphic signs. The artist paints in oil and watercolour on the surfaces of cyanotypes, photograms and photographs applied on canvas and paper. The paintings from which the multiplied patterns emerge, resulting in a kaleidoscopic effect, interact with sculptural works with a futuristic appearance. Conceived using simple materials such as cardboard, they form repetitive geometric shapes, evoking the avant-garde and early modernism
Tillman Kaiser (1972, Graz, Austria) lives and works in Vienna. The painter and sculptor studied with Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Hubert Schmalix at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. His works have been exhibited at Belvedere 21 in Vienna (2021), Secession in Vienna (2019), 21er Haus in Vienna (2017, 2014, 2012), Museo Pietro Canonica in Rome (2016), WallRiss Kunstraum and Kunsthaus Langenthal in Freiburg ( 2014), Kunsthalle Krems Factory (2013), Museum Belvedere in Vienna (2010), Contemporary Art Center in Vilnius (2010), Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna (2010), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco (2009), Neue Galerie Graz (2007).
Tillman Kaiser’s artistic practice combines different languages, including painting, drawing, photography, screen printing, collage and sculpture. His abstract mixed-media work is characterised by symmetrical compositions generated by a repetition and perspective distortion of graphic signs. The artist paints in oil and watercolour on the surfaces of cyanotypes, photograms and photographs applied on canvas and paper. The paintings from which the multiplied patterns emerge, resulting in a kaleidoscopic effect, interact with sculptural works with a futuristic appearance. Conceived using simple materials such as cardboard, they form repetitive geometric shapes, evoking the avant-garde and early modernism
Tillman Kaiser (1972, Graz, Austria) lives and works in Vienna. The painter and sculptor studied with Friedensreich Hundertwasser and Hubert Schmalix at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna. His works have been exhibited at Belvedere 21 in Vienna (2021), Secession in Vienna (2019), 21er Haus in Vienna (2017, 2014, 2012), Museo Pietro Canonica in Rome (2016), WallRiss Kunstraum and Kunsthaus Langenthal in Freiburg ( 2014), Kunsthalle Krems Factory (2013), Museum Belvedere in Vienna (2010), Contemporary Art Center in Vilnius (2010), Kunsthalle Wien in Vienna (2010), Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco (2009), Neue Galerie Graz (2007).
