Supernova invites you on the 12th of September at 18:30 to the opening of Arturo Herrera’s personal exhibition “Fare un giro”, curated by Allegra Pesenti.

Arturo Herrera
Fare un giro

Curated by Allegra Pesenti

Arturo Herrera applies modernist strategies of fragmentation and repetition in work that confronts the legacy of abstraction with the art of collage. For ‘Fare un giro’, the artist has chosen to activate the Supernova space on Piazza di S. Maria in Trastevere in Rome with a focused selection of serial and individual works that combine past and present, and emphasize the physicality of materials both within and around the works themselves.

The subtle juxtaposition of realities in Herrera’s visual language are drawn from his extraordinary archive of found imagery. Two series on view for the first time in this exhibition were produced during the artist’s residency at the American Academy in Rome between September and November, 2023. ‘Fare un giro’, which translates loosely to ‘going for a wander,’ references Italian sites and cities in a presentation that is specific to space and place. Within the installation, photographic reproductions of ancient statuary and Etruscan tombs collide with a magnified image of the Gazzetta dello Sport – the daily newspaper with sports coverage that is instantly recognizable for its pink pages and has the largest readership in Italy.

Herrera’s works span from miniature to monumental, and from flat surfaces in traditional collages to dimensional sculptural compositions and assemblages. Found objects are incorporated into his forms in works such as ‘Bang and Untitled’, a large monochromatic sheet of cut felt that falls from the wall. “There is an interplay between the found object and its link to everyday cultural sources that reflects the contaminated aspect of today‘s abstraction” explains Herrera.

A stand-apart element of the installation at Supernova is the wallpaper of a forest that represents a more anonymous and transportive state. This encompassing scene proposes a pause within the urban and cultural environments on the artist’s giro. “The visitor is invited to take his or her own tour into the artist’s constructed compositions that propose layered readings and associations” says curator Allegra Pesenti, “in a body of work that redefines the nature and impact of the collage form.” Fare un giro is Arturo Herrera’s first and long awaited exhibition in Rome.

A limited edition postcard by Arturo Herrera is available for purchase at Supernova, with the proceeds going to the local Community of Sant’Egidio.

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY
Arturo Herrera was born in Caracas, Venezuela in 1959. Over the last 20 years, he has developed an internationally celebrated and multi-layered body of work which spans from collages and felt sculpture to large-scaled public commissions and wall paintings. Herrera’s art straddles between figuration and abstraction and is notable for the positioning of found images within ambiguous contexts.

Herrera’s work is featured in the collections of acclaimed institutions world-wide including San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco CA; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago IL; Museum of Modern Art, New York NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York NY; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles CA; Tate Modern, London UK; Staatliche Museen zu Berlin – Kupferstichkabinett, Berlin, Germany; and Museo Reina Sofia, Madrid. His work appeared in the 2002 Whitney Biennial, and has been the subject of numerous solo exhibitions, the most recent of which was You are here, Site Santa Fe, NM (2024). He has been the recipient of many awards including a Deutscher Akademischer Austausch Dienst (DAAD) Fellowship and The Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship. In 2023, Herrera was the Deenie Yudell Resident in the Visual Arts at the American Academy in Rome. He currently lives and works in Berlin.

CURATOR’S BIOGRAPHY
A native of Milan, Allegra Pesenti received her PhD from the Courtauld Institute of Art in London and specialised in the study of works on paper. She joined the drawings department of the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles in 1999, and the Grunwald Center for Graphic Arts at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles in 2007. Allegra was hired as Chief Curator of the Menil Drawing Institute in Houston in 2013, and she re-joined the Hammer Museum as associate director and senior curator in 2016. She currently works as an independent curator based in Rome.

The exhibition, curated by Annalisa D’Angelo, will be set up through large-format works depicting scenes of nature with a strong impact, centered around a small, fragile human figure, engaging a dialogue with intimate, small-format works composed of details of rocks, flowers and trunks. The intention is to unify opposing feelings: the pain of struggling to conceive and the ancient need to feel embraced by Mother Nature. To complete the exhibition, there will be a material setup curated by Eugenia Lecca, who will choose natural elements such as flowers and plants to contaminate the elements and create a photographic exhibition where technology and nature meet.

On the 14th of February at 6pm we invite you to the inauguration of Daniele di Girolamo’s solo exhibition A measure of a Distance, curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi.

A measure of distance by Daniele Di Girolamo unfolds in two evolving environments divided into the levels of Supernova, exploring relational dynamics according to a dual awareness: relating to the other and listening to the inner flows of one’s own knowledge. These are the chords that Daniele intends to touch.

On the ground floor, the exhibition presents the installation of three pairs of thistles dancing in space, drawing orbits through the unraveling of brass tubes. Electrical wires run inside the artificial stems that, like plant sap, allow the hermaphrodite flower to rotate on itself and seek possible contact. By observing the behavior of a plant placed inside a dark environment with only one source of light, we will notice how it will find its way to the light source. Similar to phototropism, thistle caulis find a meeting place at the end of their spatial explorations, where reaching for light is replaced by the necessary act of meeting. The rotations show us the mutability of relationships, which can sometimes result in not finding each other while at others they express the contingencies of coming together in embrace and inevitable release.

The warm breath and pulse of rapprochement are recalled by the rubbing of sharp thorns and interrupted by the frustration of their ignoring each other. The whole relational process made up of approaches, rejections and wrong circumstances, as Daniel himself describes, manifests as “sweet, violent, funny, romantic, melancholic, erotic and raw.” In the moment of maximum tension, the perception of a bond is as possible as that of a contrast. The path of the stems concretizes the past prior to the encounter, the result of a motion with defined structures. At this moment, the encounter takes its course and speaks of the present: the bodily sensations and emotional resonances of each individual act on his or her own passionate state. One enters into a more introverted and intimate reflection, which reaches the peak of intensity with the lower floor installation.

In the underground space, three sculptures worked with a plastic material that recall the shape of crumpled cylinders are shown. Inside them is sea sand that, subjected to a rotating motion, recreates the sound of the undertow. From the natural element, taken from its context of origin, a sound memory is extracted that continues to remind us of the place from which it came. In this dimension, the relationship with the other fades into a more individual and direct relationship with oneself. Time slows down, listening increases: one leaves the mind free to descend into the depths and take the measure of the distance that unites or separates oneself from others.

SPACE HOUSE by Valerio D’angelo opens a gateway onto the square of Santa Maria in Trastevere and transports us into another reality. As suggested by the title, the exhibition is inexorably linked to the concept of space, understood both in its astronomical and architectural sense due to its site-specific nature, and delves into insights from quantum physics. To understand this union simplistically, imagine standing in front of an automatic dispenser of special and unpredictable balls. Pulling some out, each behaves differently from what one might expect: one might bounce in front of us while moving horizontally, another might take on different forms when observed and when not, and so on. This happens in quantum physics with the study of particles, and in Valerio D’Angelo’s practice with the reflections generated in the dichroic mirrors of his installations.

Access to the exhibition is allowed through a portal that places the viewer at the center of a new dimension. As one passes through, space vibrates, alters, and reflects distorted images, proving that we are one possibility among infinite possibilities. The installation becomes an intermediary place for the multiplication of forms and colors, of truth. Crossing the threshold, one enters Supernova’s spaces where  a cold light reveals structures, sometimes colossal, sometimes intangible, revieling elements that appear as boarding gates to other galaxies. The dichroic film, D’Angelo’s preferred material, first appears as a fluid entity and then as an organism that takes on different forms depending on the support it inhabits, be it a column, a Venetian piece of furniture, or a projector. The succession of portal works deprives our universe, and thus us humans, of the centrality we enjoy, instead directing attention towards the unknown, beyond the boundaries of perception. Our image undergoes a doubling, it fragments into displaced worlds in which various existences become possible and probable.

In the last chapter of the exhibition, an image appears that seems to be observed under a microscope: it is the synthesis of Boltzmann’s brain theory. Through the study of lenses and lights, the projection of a micro-fragment of reality is revealed, a transposition of the fluctuating brain that generates what we perceive as real. In this case, the theory itself is reversed; it is no longer the creator shaping and projecting, but rather we are observing its projection in a slow and hypnotic movement. Everything is questioned, us and the entire universe. Even if only for a second.

Statement by Valerio D’Angelo:

“My artistic research focuses on the element of reflection, initially understood as a narcissistic gesture that allows isolating and enhancing one’s own image and opening up new forms of self-perception. Deepening this investigation, the second dimension accessed through reflection has gained increasing importance, coming to be perceived as another, displaced and equally present reality. This thought has taken on disturbing nuances, sowing in my consciousness the sensation that the reflected image was not only the result of our optical mechanism but a reality that observes us in return. We are the fragment, the doppelgänger of other realities.

Reflections on parallel dimensions and meeting portals capable of questioning the centrality of our existence, led me to approach quantum physics. I have been inspired by the idea that our reality is very improbable and possible only because all other possible realities are such: we are an improbable possibility of infinite possibilities. Banally, but also not, it is what is dealt with in the animated series Rick and Morty.

Certainly, in the cosmos of all infinite dimensions, we are not at the center. The other realities are certainly not projections of ours, but – more likely – we are a small nuance of much more probable realities. Whilst conteplating my own reflection, I’d like to think that I myself, could be the result of a reflection. I become a fragment of a possible reality, no longer at the center of the universe. Mirrors are conceived as gates of communication between different realities, where, more than scrutinizing a new one, we realize that we are one in turn, perhaps observed for a moment. The lexicon of my installations aligns with the cinematic and science fiction imagery of the 80s-90s and takes inspiration from post-apocalyptic dystopian narrative, where everything is overturned, and the linearity of our existence is broken.

Probabilistic physics makes us aware of absurd truths that we almost treat as a game. I want to take the probabilities of quantum physics, transfer the awareness, and bring back the experience.”

On Friday, December 1st, 2023, the solo exhibition “Purely Imaginable” by the duo Mozzarella Light, composed of Giulia Ciappi and Marco Frassinelli, curated by Niccolò Giacomazzi, will open at the Supernova space.

The intervention by Mozzarella Light consists of a visual manipulation of the external world using light, a ubiquitous yet immaterial medium. Through light, a direct relationship is established with the space, which is respected in its otherness with an innocent attitude. The light rays invade the entire environment, fragmenting the linear beam of light upon contact with the intermediary presence, in this case, plastic and water.

The exhibition will be open until the 15th of December.

Monday through Friday from 6pm to 8pm.

Fabio Mauri is one of the most prominent voices of the Italian avant-garde of the post war period. He lived between Bologna and Milan until 1957, when he moved to Rome. In 1942, he started the magazine II Setaccio [The Sieve] with his friend Pier Paolo Pasolini. He taught Aesthetics of experimentation at the Academy of Fine Arts of L’Aquila for 20 years. He was invited to the Venice Biennale in 1954, 1974, 1978, 1993, 2003, 2013 and 2015, and to DOCUMENTA (13) in Kassel in 2012.

Several important themes can be found in Mauri’s work, all shaped into his works of art: the Screen, the Prototypes, the Projections, the Photography as Painting, the substantial Identity of Expressive Structures, the lasting relationship between Thought and World and between Thought as World. Mauri’s work, as complex as an history essay, becomes his autobiography, compact and uniform in its development and multifaceted in the attention to the contemporary world: an analysis where the fate of the individual and history co-exist.

OPERA IN CANTIERE “SENZA” 1975

In the actions of “Senza” a series of intellectual works, organisms, complex drawings, such as films, are exhibited. Projected on the ‘world’ as on a “screen”, neither neutral nor equal, endowed with form and signification and, that is, with its own symbol. The contemporary debate is moral, political and ideological.

In the screenings of “Senza”, through films by “author”, (not surprisingly, often, European), essential cuts of modern culture are identified. Projected, as if introjected, on objects and bodies. Art scrutinizes the historical category of its time. The intellectual product operates as a protagonist: it possesses strength and specific, ‘physical’ weight, in the order of the foundation of the plot, that is, of its symbolic constituent. It does, because it is, history and world.