Galleria Franco Noero

VIA MOTTALCIATA 10/B
10154, TORINO
ITALY

Mark Handforth
After Nature

15 May — 14 October 2017

Galleria Franco Noero is pleased to present After Nature, Mark Handforth's third solo exhibition in Torino and his first hosted in the gallery space of Piazza Carignano.

 

In a series of new sculptures and light works that draw "directly, inadvertently or inevitably" from elemental natural forms, from ferns and fractals, from worms and snakes, the artist applies the spiraling, looping tendencies of Nature's ad-hoc progressions as both muse and working process.

 

Made specifically for the ornate rooms of the 18th century apartment, the pieces might refer equally to the Baroque and post-Baroque preoccupation with natural forms evident in the painted ceilings, where plants morph into animals and snakes loop absurdly, their natural forms twisted to fit the demanding patterns of high bourgeois culture.

 

Yet substituting the notion of natural representation with that of analogous objects, of post-industrial minimal forms that stand as easily within or next to nature, the sculptures, as the title suggests, also hint at the idea of stand-ins for nature and the alarming perversity of a future without it.

 

In After Nature, Handforth combines the element of natural inspiration with the constant reference to the urban landscape. By creating works ranging in size from intimate to monumental where the spiral form prevails, his sculptures generate a powerful energy that spreads throughout the space, creating a dynamic tension between the organic and the geometric, between concepts of change and immanence, the natural and the artificial, abstraction and symbolic representation.

 

Light is another significant element in the artistʼs practice, either cold and artificial when produced by neons or warm and immersive when colored candles are lit: it becomes a tangible element part of the plasticity of the sculptures, transforming and substantially altering the perception of their forms.

 

Mark Handforth (Hong Kong, 1969) lives and works in Miami. His work has been exhibited in international Institutions in solo and group shows, among which: SMOKE, Museo dʼArte Contemporanea Villa Croce, Genoa (2016); Sidewalk Island, Governors Island, New York; Drop Shadow, Mazarine invites Mark Handforth, Studio des Acacias, Paris (2014); Horseshoe, Abbaye de Cluny, Cluny, France; Rolling Stop, Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami (cat.); LʼEtoile de Bagnolet, permanent installation, Place de la Porte de Bagnolet, Paris (2012); MCA Chicago Plaza Project, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Hessel Museum of Art, Bard College, New York (2011); Kunstnernes Hus (with Urs Fischer and Georg Herold), Oslo (2009); Concentrations 51: Mark Handforth, Dallas Museum of Art, Dallas, TX (2007); Kunsthaus Zürich, Zürich (2005); Stroom Den Haag, The Hague, Netherlands (2005); Lamppost, a Public Art Fund commission, New York (2003); Hammer Projects, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, CA (2002). Selected group shows include: 99 Cents or Less, MoCAD, Detroit, MI (2017); FRAC Poitou-Charentes, Poitou-Charentes (2016); Global Positioning Systems, Perez Art Museum, Miami, FL (2015); Joie de Vivre, Palais des Beaux-Arts, Lille (2015); Ugo Rondinone: I love John Giorno, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2015); Room To Live: Recent acquisitions and works from the collection, MOCA, Los Angeles (2013); Retour du monde, public commissioned art on a Paris tram route, Musée dʼart moderne et contemporain, Geneve (2013); Hors les Murs, FIAC Jardin des Tuileries, Paris (2012); Mapping the Studio: Artists from the François Pinault Collection, Palazzo Grassi/Punta della Dogana, Venice (2009); Château de Tokyo/Tokyo, Redux, Ile de Vassivière (2008); The Uncertainty of Objects and Ideas, Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC (2006); 5 Milliards dʼAnnées, Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2006); Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of Art, New York (2004); Terminal 5, JFK Airport, New York (2004).

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