MAURIZIO DONZELLI ETCETERA
Maurizio Donzelli. Etcetera. curated by Luca Cerizza 23 March - 16 May 2017 Opening: Thursday, 23 March 2017, 6 - 8.30pm Cortesi Gallery, 41&43 Maddox Street, London W1S 2PD The work of Maurizio Donzelli (b. Brescia, 1958) focuses on mark, drawing and ornament as hub around which all other tools of expression seem to gravitate. These characteristics are visible both in the realization of the work and in the ways in which the latter is exhibited. The first-ever solo exhibition in the UK dedicated to Donzelli’s oeuvre, which will be held at Cortesi Gallery, presents a series of works from the last two years of his artistic production, in particular, a selection of acrylic drawings and “Mirrors”. Whether Donzelli’s drawings take the form of watercolour on paper, acrylic on paper or acrylic on silk, they are above all a track, a tracing, a rhyzome. If they can be compared to a path realised with the mark, this path is not prepared according to any preordained scheme. If anything, is the point of departure that indicates the direction, because what interests the artist about drawing is above all the beginning, “the image as revelation”, as he declared. From that first moment – which seems to allude to the biological development of life forms – the artist becomes the conduit for a stream of sensation, guiding and following a path and inner cadence that leads to the formation of the work. The latter should be seen as an articulation of marks; abstract, but of organic origin, as if they were a “germination” that has never really come to an end. Donzelli pursues a certain fluidity, a continuum of sensations that will lead past the threshold of control through the symbiosis between body, materials and surface in his drawings. As in his drawings and his “Mirror” works as well, Donzelli tries and clearly manages to lose control over the final outcome of his aesthetic undertaking.
In the former, a temporary absence of self is achieved through a sense of “dilation” manifested in the fluidity of the relationship with his materials and movement, in the way the work unfolds; in the “Mirrors”, on the other hand, this loss seems to be brought about in advance. Taking an image that may be a new painting, a manipulated photograph of a previous work, or a three-dimensional collage, Donzelli applies a prismatic lens that covers the entire original image, and places it inside a wooden box, also delimited by a frame. Since the artist is forced to assemble the work from behind, the final outcome of this superimposition, this merger of image and lenticular glass, is revealed only when the artist turns around the completed work. In the “Mirrors”, the reflecting mirror is actually an image while the viewer is moving, almost as if the works were having an independent life of its own. Like a frustrated Narcissus betrayed by his own expectations, the viewers of the “Mirror” look into it and see their own image in relation to their surroundings, but then find they are being “looked at” by the work that was supposed to reflect them. Through the drawings and the “Mirrors”, Donzelli’s practice creates a strong sense of “overflow,” of pouring past the boundaries of space and the surface assigned to them, as if they had difficulty remaining within the area marked off by the paper, the frame, the fabric. As usual, it is in the singularity of the exhibition but above all, in its context that this continuous flow finds a temporary rest and balance. Luca Cerizza
Cortesi Gallery 41 & 43 Maddox Street, London W1S 2PD Gallery hours: Monday – Friday: 10am – 6pm, Saturday: 12 – 6pm
Mirror 7316 2016 mixed media, wooden box 65×49×7.5cm
Mirror 0217 2017 mixed media, wooden box 73×51×7.5cm
Mirror 6916 2016 mixed media, wooden box 53×47.60×7.5cm
Mirror 1217 2017 mixed media, wooden box 104×97×7.5cm
Mirror 0117 2017 mixed media, wooden box 64.80×49×7.5cm
Mirror 0117 2017 mixed media, wooden box 64.80×49×7.5cm
Mirror 1017 2017 mixed media, wooden box 131×97×7.5cm
Mirror 1117 2017 mixed media, wooden box 131×97×7.5cm
Mirror 4616 2016 mixed media, wooden box 138x97.3x7.5cm
Mirror 4616 2016 mixed media, wooden box 138x97.3x7.5cm
Mirror 2716 2016 mixed media, wooden box 135.5×97×7.5cm
Architettura , 1975 acrylic and cables, iron and aluminium on canvas 100 Ă— 100 cm
Mirror 3716 2016 mixed media, wooden box 64x49.30x7.5cm
Mirror 4116 2016 mixed media, wooden box 101x97x7cm
Mirror 7116 2016 mixed media, wooden box 69×49×7.5cm
Mirror 5216 2016 mixed media, wooden box 83x58x7.5cm
Mirror 0917 2017 mixed media, wooden box 55.30×52×7.5cm
Disegno del quasi, Dittico 2016 diptych, acrylic on pure cotton paper 400gr. 53.50×74×4cm
Disegno Del Quasi 2016 pure cotton paper in wooden frame, 60Ă—80cm
Disegno del quasi 2016 acrylic on pure cotton paper 400gr. 59.50Ă—79.50Ă—4.5cm
Diagonale, 1982 acrylic on canvas 125 × 100 cm
Disegno del quasi acrylic on 400gr pure cotton paper in wooden frame 110x150cm
Disegno del quasi dittico 2016 acrylic on pure cotton paper 110×150×5cm 220x150x5cm diptych
Diagonale, 1982 acrylic on canvas 125 × 100 cm