Fondazione Memmo is delighted to present il terzo fronte by Oscar Murillo, the artist’s first solo exhibition in Italy and first major exhibition since winning the Turner Prize 2019. The exhibition will be open to the public from 23rd of April until the 1st of November 2020.
The Colombian born artist, amongst the winners of the 2019 Turner Prize, is known for a wide-ranging practice that investigates cross-cultural ties and the social fallout of globalisation.
The invitation by the Fondazione Memmo led Oscar Murillo to conceive a completely new project, born after numerous visits to Rome. Driven by a personal fascination with one of the world’s most ancient cities and the so-called ‘birthplace of Western civilisation,’ Murillo critically looks at both origins and contemporary expressions of society. The city’s presence is evoked through a series of physical masses or barriers which interrupt and transform the exhibition space - literally “cut” by three...lines that cross it horizontally – their carefully selected materials serving to reference historical events, conjure moods or allegories bound up with Rome.
The title of the exhibition, il terzo fronte (the third front), draws inspiration from the rows of objects that Murillo has assembled: it deals with the three orders, almost like the trench lines, formed by different materials (antique furniture and domestic textiles, marble slabs, benches from churches, religious icons), which are manifestations of a classic aesthetic, that evoke the city’s past grandiosity and are translated into the present decadence of a bourgeois society. Thus the contemporary social hierarchy is explored, in its complex interwoven power relations between an imperial past, and a present in which organised religion and private wealth form an integral part of state power.
"The show has roots in the geographical context of Rome as a historical epicentre, let’s depart from the Renaissance onwards. Western civilisation with its insatiable cultural, social and political dominance has been exported and imposed globally, I am appropriating its symbolic architecture - marble, furniture, and its religious iconography to make a disruptive gesture.” says Oscar Murillo.
Murillo’s installation is configured as a single major environmental intervention, a path that, remodelling the space of Fondazione Memmo, offers the visitor an experience that is anything but comfortable. It brings to an exploration of the exhibition space, that offers a nonlinear and unsweetened look at the classicism of Rome.
il terzo fronte is the sixth monographic exhibition at the Fondazione Memmo, which every year since 2012 follows a strong programme of commissioned solo-exhibitions dedicated to an internationally renowned artist. The artist is invited to interact with the city of Rome, its history, territory and craftsmanship to create a new body of work.
OSCAR MURILLO
Oscar Murillo was born in La Paila, Colombia in 1986. His practice encompasses paintings, sculptures, installations, works on paper, actions, collaborative projects, and videos. The notion of cultural exchange and the multiple ways in which ideas, languages, and even everyday items are displaced, circulated, and increasingly intermingled are at the centre of his interests; Murillo’s work demonstrates a nuanced understanding of the specific conditions of globalisation and its attendant state of flux, while maintaining the universality of human experience.
Murillo earned his B.F.A. in 2007 from the University of Westminster, London, followed by his M.F.A. in 2012 from the Royal College of Art, London. He is represented by Carlos/Ishikawa and Isabella Bortolozzi, as well as having joined David Zwirner in 2013, exhibiting globally with the gallery on numerous occasions. Oscar Murillo’s works and projects have been the subject of solo exhibitions at prominent institutions worldwide, including: Kunstverein in Hamburg (2019-2020); The Shed, New York (2019); chi K11 art museum, Shanghai; Kettle’s Yard, Cambridge (both 2019); Haus der Kunst, Munich (2017-2018); Yarat Contemporary Art Centre, Baku (2017); Museo de Arte de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá (2015).
Murillo’s work has featured in numerous international biennales including the Berlin Biennale (2018); Sharjah Biennale (2017); Performa 15, New York (2015). In the same year he was amongst the artists invited to the 56 th Venice Biennale with the ongoing long-term project Frequencies, created in collaboration with members of his family and political scientist Clara Dublanc: canvases are temporarily affixed to classroom desks in selected schools across the globe, encouraging students aged ten to sixteen to create any kind of mark making—drawing, writing, doodling.
Works by the artist are included in museum collections worldwide, including The Broad, Los Angeles; Dallas Art Museum; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; Kettle’s Yard, University of Cambridge; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; The MoMA, New York; Rubell Family Collection, Miami; and Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst (S.M.A.K.), Ghent.
FRANCESCO STOCCHI
Francesco Stocchi (Rome, 1975) has been curator of Modern and Contemporary Art at the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen in Rotterdam since 2012 and responsible for the artistic program of the Fondazione Carriero in Milan and Fondazione Memmo in Rome.
He is this year’s co-curator at the 34th edition of the São Paulo Bienal entitled Faz escuro mas eu canto; in 2021 he will curate the Swiss Pavilion of artist Latifa Echakhch at the 59 th Venice Biennale. He writes and holds regular conferences on art and visual culture. Francesco Stocchi lives in Amsterdam.
FONDAZIONE MEMMO
Fondazione Memmo came into being in 1990 to realize the dream of its founder, Roberto Memmo. At that period very few museums in Italy had a dynamic and active approach, but the time was ripe for creating new private and public spaces for art in several Italian cities, with many of which the foundation would collaborate over the years.
The Foundation has displayed masterpieces of every age and culture, with the objective of bringing a broad public closer to the world of art.
In 2012, the Fondazione Memmo broadens its views with a new exhibition programme entirely free and dedicated to the contemporary art scene, promoting the interaction between the artists and the city of Rome.
The activity of the Foundation is mainly based on two different lines of intervention: a programme of monographic exhibitions, the result of residencies dedicated to a guest artist and a series of group exhibitions dedicated to Italian and foreign artists temporarily present in the city of Rome.
The monographic exhibitions provide an invitation to an artist called to expand his practice, experimenting with new creative possibilities bringing them closer to local and traditional craftsmanship. The program was started with the artist Sara VanDerBeek (2012), followed by Sterling Ruby (2013), Shannon Ebner (2014) – that inaugurated the new exhibition space of the stables of the Ruspoli Palace –, Camille Henrot (2016), Giuseppe Gabellone (2017), Kerstin Brätsch and the collective KAYA (2018), Latifa Echakhch (2019).
Since 2015, Fondazione Memmo launched also a collective exhibition platform curated by Marcello Smarrelli, Conversation Piece, this year at its sixth edition.
Since February 2019 Fondazione Memmo is working in partnership with Gasworks, London to offer Italian artists a fully funded residency. Fostering a cultural exchange between Italy and the UK the Fondazione positions itself as pioneer by bringing Italian contemporary mid career artist to the UK and hosting British artists in Rome, Italy.
Entrada actualizada el el 17 feb de 2020
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