A Conversation Between the Artist and Catherine De Zegher
ANDREA BIANCONI
Drawing
Artist’s Reception + Book Signing:
Friday, October 13, 6:30 - 8:30pm
On View:
October 13, 2017 -November 11, 2017
Performance at7:30pm
Book Signing:Solo, Monograph,
a conversation between the artist andCatherine De Zegher.
Barbara Davis Gallery is pleased to announceDrawing, a solo-exhibition by artist Andrea Bianconi,opening Friday, October 13, 2017, with anartist’s reception and book signing from 6:30-8:30pmand a performance by the artist at 7:30pm. This exhibition includes drawings, sculpture, and alarge-scale site-specific installation of wall drawings throughout the gallery.Solo, amonograph published by AmC Collezione Coppola, with aconversation between Andrea Bianconi and internationally recognized Catherine De Zegher, Director of the Museum of Fine Arts Ghent, formally the Director of the Drawing Center New York, and curator of the exhibition On The Line, Museum of Modern Art New York, New York.
In his exhibitionDrawing, Bianconi presents new works through the use of symbols, primarily the arrow, Bianconi constructs imaginative landscapes composed of obsessive marks that symbolize direction and movement. Countless hand-drawn arrows swarm the canvases and wall drawings; the positive and negative spaces between each intricate mark implying depth and dimension. From afar, the drawings appear to pulsate—familiar landscape imagery gradually emerges, and then quickly recedes back into the mass of lines. Drawing pays tribute to a journey, full of surprises, desires, relations, connections, performance and sculptures. The mysterious landscapes illustrate the artist’s desires and exploration within his passage of an illusive world.
"The ambition of soaring has accompanied the history of human thinking since forever, from the Myth of Icarus to Leonardo's research, to today, it puts life and death into relation. In this performance, Andrea Bianconi gives voice to the subconscious desire of embracing the universe while setting our spirit free, and at the same time, brings our deepest fears into focus. It forces us to look ourselves in the mirror, with our inabilities and our limits, but at the same time pushes us to not set back on our illusions and to reconsider the effort of trying to fly as something vital in itself.” Vittoria Coen, in a statement from the art curator and a contemporary art critic.
"When I draw I always look for a potential connection. I look for the other, who might be the other one living inside me, the other person, the other culture, the other thought. The other is not only fundamentally important; the other is in fact vital. When I draw I feel like a seeker of connections, of what is visible and what is not. I feel like a seeker of connections between people, things, cultures, spaces, actions and sounds. I live with the unexpected, with what surprises and amazes me, or with what makes me sad, with what can bring me to places known and unknown. “ Catherine De Zegher in conversation with Andrea Bianconi.
"Drawing is my journey, my travel companion, and the way I relate to the world. It’s the line that connects people, populations, countries, cultures, as well as me to myself. “ Catherine De Zegher in conversation with Andrea Bianconi.
Andrea Bianconi (Arzignano, 1974) lives and works in Italy and New York. His recent exhibitions include Drawing- solo exhibition at Barbara Davis Gallery 2017, Solstice - Dialogic Drawing Experiment at the MSK Museum of Fine Arts in Ghent, Belgium. He was selected to participate in the 5th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, curated by Catherine de Zegher. His selected reviews include Art in America, Flash Art, Vogue Italia, Beijing Times, and Art Newspaper. In 2013, Bianconi launched his publication Fable at MoMA PS1, which was purchased by the MoMA Library.
Bianconi’s public art performances include Red Square in Moscow, Russia, Union Square in New York, West Nanjing Road in Shanghai, China, and San Marco Square in Venice, Italy. In March of 2016, an anthology of Bianconi’s 10 years of performance (2006 - 2016) was released by Silvana editor and a retrospective at Casa Testori, Milan.
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