Looking Forward while Looking Back
With works by Martin Désilets, Shoko Masunaga and Monica Mazzone.
Curated by Elisa Gutiérrez Erikesen
August 21 - September 10, 2020
Virtual Exhibition
The artists presented in this iteration of Guiding Principles in part of the Looking Forward while Looking Back series, are Martin Désilets, Shoko Masunaga and Monica Mazzone.
From a set of defined variables following a series of instructions, to the use of geometry as a guiding principle for rationalizing emotions, these works are the result of processes based on predetermined rules and protocols.
But even if a structure is in place, the interactions along the way and the multiple external variables can generate results that inform, simultaneously, the process itself and the viewer. Among the variables are weight and gravity, optical illusions, and spatial structures that reveal a path for contemplation of ideas, memories and relationships as they change, transform and appear.
About the artists:
Martin Désilets
I wander through the museums. I photograph every art work, one at a time, and make them disappear by superposing the images in a single digital file. I will do so, following a protocol, until full black is achieved—a monochrome containing virtually every art work. I wander through the cities. I photograph the places and monuments using a camera body without a lens, a blind camera. Beyond the subjects, and the shadows, color and light remain.
Monica Mazzone
Monica Mazzone is an Italian visual artist, lives and works between Milan and New York.
Her research is a study into the idea of being able to perceive and visually express the obsession for perfection, proposing geometry as a guiding principle of the creative act to rationalize one’s own emotions and the happenings of the world with spatial structures perceived as parts of a rhytm implicating the body itself and its own proportions; all of her works are handmade by herself.
Many private and public venues, in Italy and abroad, exhibited her works including: MASS MoCA North Adams, Temporaneo Navile Museum Bologna, La rada Foundation Locarno, NARS Foundation e The Border New York, Palazzo Reale, Studio Maraniello, Giuseppe Pero Gallery, Arthur Cravan Foundation, Fabbrica del Vapore, Isimbardi Palace – Milan, Museum of Contemporary art Lissone, Spazio Thetis Arsenale Venice, Satzyor Gallery Budapest.
Shoko Masunaga
Shoko Masunaga has been working mainly in Tokyo, Japan, using painting as her base. Her work is influenced by the surrounding environment, interaction is considered. There are many variations of her work, but the main feature of her work the variability itself, whether in medium or discipline, such as sculpture or architecture. The works can oftentimes be rearranged, and are frequently altered from place to place.
She got the grant Agency for Cultural Affairs Scholarship program of Japan 2018, spent one year in New York. Her main exhibition in recent years was a solo exhibition at Cooler Gallery in Brooklyn in 2019.
Due to COVID regulations, attendance is limited for the opening reception.
NARS Foundation Galleries are open to the public from 12pm - 5pm, Monday - Friday. Please contact info@narsfoundation.org with any other inquires.
