Modules
Posted on February 17 2018
Already in the ’30s of the last century, within the book The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical reproduction (1936), Walter Benjamin formulated the ideas of ‘reproducibility’ and ‘seriality’ connected to the artworks’ images. It was an era of huge change then, where serial production and industrialisation became two of the main keywords within the economic branch: in this context, Benjamin was able to foresee a revolution that would have affected the cultural-creative field, after WWII.
In fact, almost a century later, all these topics are still of interest: the temporary exhibition “Modules”, organised within Millepiani in Rome (1-28 February 2018), it is a collective and visual narrative focused on the themes of repetition, reproduction and seriality.
A narrative that goes through different lands, times and media, according to a specific path chosen by every artist. Even the authenticity of every work is peculiar and unique, the viewers will be able to trace certain similarities, affinities – both iconographical and technical.
In fact, almost a century later, all these topics are still of interest: the temporary exhibition “Modules”, organised within Millepiani in Rome (1-28 February 2018), it is a collective and visual narrative focused on the themes of repetition, reproduction and seriality.
A narrative that goes through different lands, times and media, according to a specific path chosen by every artist. Even the authenticity of every work is peculiar and unique, the viewers will be able to trace certain similarities, affinities – both iconographical and technical.
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Elizaveta Ostapenko, 117, 2016
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Lauria Marie, Error 404-1, 2017
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Sandro Tedde, InterNos, 2017
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Many images highlight the architectural side of the ‘modules’, showing fragments of built environments around the world. Sometimes the artists’ interest is concentrated on residential blocks, where houses and apartment buildings erected in the past decades give us now a sense of nostalgia and loneliness, as if something is still incomplete. Others investigate on the economic and natural perspectives of the architecture: where there were nature, now there is urbanisation – and sometimes the cycle is even one-step ahead, towards the abandonment. Another part of the artworks underlines a positive side of seriality and repetition, focusing on the architectural heritage and its tangible and intangible values.
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A second ‘thematic group’ is centred on digital instruments: the net and digital art presented within this exhibition use social media and other current codes in order to elaborate serial languages and compositions that want to say something on our lifestyle and behaviour.
A second ‘thematic group’ is centred on digital instruments: the net and digital art presented within this exhibition use social media and other current codes in order to elaborate serial languages and compositions that want to say something on our lifestyle and behaviour.
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Mark Cypher, Biogram, 2017
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Vanja Mervič, Obscure Mechanism of Consciousness, 2017
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Some of them, for example, create digital grids – then repainted – that seem to be bird’s eye views taken from the sky; some others use social media as a platform to reshape the concept of ‘experience’: the result is a mix of verbo-visual images, where words are paired with serial and symmetrical geometric figures.
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Finally yet importantly, there is the ‘mixed media section’: at first sight, it is difficult to say where painting ends and sculpture begins, where poetry is substituted by digital interventions. In any case, we assist to a multi-layered language that wants to spread a message: it is a modern code, a contemporary poetry and, at the same time, a familiar and sublime elegy.
Finally yet importantly, there is the ‘mixed media section’: at first sight, it is difficult to say where painting ends and sculpture begins, where poetry is substituted by digital interventions. In any case, we assist to a multi-layered language that wants to spread a message: it is a modern code, a contemporary poetry and, at the same time, a familiar and sublime elegy.
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Anna Kadykova, Solid, 2015
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Alexander Bondar, Untitled, 2015
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Ryan Goh, But I Digress, 2017
Aleksandra Kosakowska, Coral Reef Creature, 2017
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