

ABOUT: Andrea Bianconi, Nemanja Cvijanovic, Tim Ellis, Edward Thomasson, Benoit Pailley, conceptinprogress, Fabrizio Modesti, Fratelli Calgaro, Gabriel Hartley, Gian Domenico Sozzi, Marcelo Cidade, Marlon de Azambuja, Maurizio Anzeri, Nick Goss, Philip Wiegard, Robert Barta, Smith/Stewart, William Cobbing, Serena Vestrucci, Rose O'Gallivan,Thomas Braida, Valerio Nicolai, Lupo Borgonovo, Ben Barretto, Enzo Cucchi, Gianni Politi, Jean-Baptiste Bernadet, Anna Franceschini
Andrea Bianconi
Is-Land
Furini Arte Contemporanea
E 7
(performance: every day 1pm and 5pm)
The IS-LAND project by Andrea Bianconi - developed for VOLTA NY - is made up both of an installation bearing the same title and of a performance (A Charmed Life). It points quite clearly to the research path followed by the artist.
His work has developed as an unrelenting analysis of the relationship between uniqueness of the ego and multiple identities. Starting from autobiography, this analysis has moved up to speculative reflections on the human being in its individual and social components. Man is shown as a bundle of conflicting tensions that are mirrored by the overlapping of multifarious elements, materials and symbols - which in Bianconi's works are closely related to fantasy and folklore as well as to literary, artistic and historical reminiscences (Borges, Calvino, up to Luigi Ontani).
The resulting scenario is seemingly lightweight; in fact, it is psychologically complex - a sort of dream-like journey, projecting a tangible uneasiness halfway between conscious and subconscious in which inner conflicts go hand in hand with public representation and the boundaries between space and time are blurred to the point of utter isolation. The human being is accordingly seen as an island (ISLAND), or maybe the human being IS - LAND.
This can be inferred from the drawings and sculptures making up the installation, but also from the performance - where the artist dips his hands into the flow of the various extensions of human identity, corresponding to the many ropes that fall, cascade-like, from the tap on the wall. Divinatory charms are fastened to the ropes, but each of them also marks a memory of personal experiences - halfway between spirituality and materiality, its dualism being a feature of all human beings. These charms, which are only fastened to their ropes, are grouped ultimately to give rise to an objectified representation made up of entities that are both isolated and mutually related. The resulting fabric is inevitably different at each performance, which emphasizes the feeling of an out-of-control interaction and, therefore, of loneliness.
Born 1974
Lives New York
Recent group shows: Cluster, Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX, USA 2009; Istant Book – Italian Artists New York, ISCP, Brooklyn, NY, USA 2009; Tina B – The Prague Contemporary Art Festival. Praga, Repubblica Ceca 2009; Arte Fiera (Furini Arte Contemporanea), Bologna, Italia 2008; L’immagine sottile – opere della collezione della Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea di Monfalcone a cura di Andrea Bruciati, GC.AC Monfalcone (GO), Italia 2008.
Recent solo shows: Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX 2010; Vernon Projekt, Praga, Repubblica Ceca 2010; sapere non sapere a cura di Oliver Orest Tschirky, Casa Gallo, Palazzo Brusarosco Zaccaria, Vicenza, Italia 2009; Bond, Kiton, New York, NY, USA 2009; Pony Express a cura di Oliver Orest Tschirky, Barbara Davis Gallery, Houston, TX, USA 2007; Vanity, UBS, Lugano, Svizzera 2006; BODYGUARDS a cura di Marina Mojana, Furini Arte Contemporanea, Arezzo, Italia 2005.
Italian version
Alice Bertay, Stylist
Patricia Regan, Hair/Make up
Marlon Daube, Assistan Stylist
Benoit Pailley presents this collaboration with Italian arist Andrea Bianconi and stylist Alice Bertay. With this assignment for Double, Pailley brought to life Bianconi’s art practice of sculpture, collage and painting. Bianconi invents costume accesories in the manner of his work that reveal his preoccupations (paranoia, fantasia and escapism) while Bertay styles his cast of characters. Like his sculptures, Bianconi, now the subject, is posed in a gallery environment of gray floor and white wall, while Pailley assumes the role of artist and manipulates his form/model into contortions that are surreal, humorous and bizarre.
photo courtesy ©Benoit Pailley