Galleria Franco Noero

VIA MOTTALCIATA 10/B
10154, TORINO
ITALY

Tunga
From “La Voie Humide”

05 November — 23 December 2014

Galleria Franco Noero is pleased to present From “La Voie Humide”, the first solo exhibition in Italy of works by the Brazilian artist Tunga, and his first in the gallery.

 

Organic forms and references to parts of the body are recurrent elements in both the drawings and the sculptures on show in the gallery. In his new three-dimensional works, specially created for the occasion, the presence of various types of materials – iron, quartz, ceramic, resin, fossil wood, bronze, rubber, plaster, leather and pearls – creates a dialogue between their intrinsic qualities: softness and rigidity, and solids and voids, invading the space with narrative allusions that examine the concept of evolution and transformation. Abstracted or translated into more recognisable objects, the materials and forms they acquire bear a strong symbolic value, creating a surprising but subtle balance between the various elements.

 

The ten drawings, created by a single continuous line on extremely thin sheets of Himalayan paper draw on a Surrealist vocabulary linked to the body and psychic automatisms. Together they act as a musical score that guides the sculptures. This means that the works on display are harmoniously linked together in a sort of space-time catenation which, as the artist himself puts it, makes them part of a “congregation”.

 

The corpus of work reflects the artist’s interest in psychoanalysis, and particularly in the childhood phase prior to identification with one’s own body in the mirror. In it we see signs of a personal interpretation of the esoteric sciences, and especially of alchemy. The “wet way” mentioned in the title is a reference to the potential for transforming matter through the power of the senses and of fluid or organic materials, as opposed to the “dry way” of the intellect, which lead to disciplines such as science and philosophy.

 

Tunga (Palmares, Brazil, 1952) lives and works in Rio de Janeiro. His work has been shown in solo exhibitions at public institutions such as the Jeu de Paume (2001), the Museu Serralves (2006), MoMA PS1 (2007), and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston (2009). He has also taken part in numerous exhibitions such as documenta X (1997), XXIV Bienal de Sao Paulo (1998), Gwangju Biennale (2000), 3rd Moscow Biennale (2009) and in group shows in institutions such as the Museo Reina Sofía (2000), the Guggenheim Museum in New York (2002), the Moderna Museet in Stockholm (2003), the Miami Art Museum (2009), the Museu de Arte Moderna in Rio de Janeiro (2010), the Astrup Fearnley Museet in Oslo (2013), the Schirn Kunsthalle in Frankfurt (2013), and the Palais de Tokyo (2014).

Read more