Marco Contino Portfolio by Marco Contino

A PORTFOLIO MARCO CONTINO

£ 16,000 per sq.m How to make £ 16,000 per sq.m. Untitled (Sugar Wall) Ammainabandiera Sale Gratwandern

INDEX

MARCO CONTINO

Biography

/ MARCO CONTINO

BIOGRAPHY

MARCO CONTINO

Marco Contino, born in Catania, Sicily, in 1986, graduates at the Accademy of Fine Arts of Venice in 2014. During his studies he participates in various events in occasion of the 54° Biennale d'Arte di Venezia, collaborating for instance with the Argentinean artist Amalia Pica. In 2009 his work is awarded at the international stage design contest Opera J mise en scène. Between 2010 and 2012 he takes part in a series of workshops hold by the François Pinault Foundation at its Venice gallery of Palazzo Grassi where he has the chance to collaborate with artists such as Urs Fischer, Loris Gréaud, Friedrich Kunath and Piotr Uklanski. In 2012, Marco Contino wins a scholarship for Middlesex University in London where he studies at the MA programme of Fine Arts for a year. In London he displays works in Eye-Eye Artist's Collective at the Art Pavilion and in Hot-One-Hundred at Schwartz Gallery. During Spill Festival 2013 he collaborates with the artists Julie Vulcan and The Famous Lauren Barri Holstein. In December 2014 he is selected by Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation to expose in 98ma Collettiva Giovani Artisti (98th Young Artists' Collective) at the foundation's gallery of St. Mark's Square, Venice.

STATEMENT / INDEX

MARCO CONTINO

In his artistic approach, Marco Contino is strictly contemporary. His work often shows minimalist characteristics which are subject to conceptual processes of deformation or destruction determining both the formal aspect and the meaning of the piece. These processes that generate or mutilate the works manifest themselves in the form of live performance or photographic or videographic documentation accompanying the physical artwork. The ironic play with the concept of value â&#x20AC;&#x201D; natural and artificial, real and fictive, objective and subjective â&#x20AC;&#x201D; as well as the appropriation of the rules that define the determining dynamics and the experimental violation of this game's structure can be identified as the recurrent artistic language throughout many of Marco Contino's works.

MARCO CONTINO

What is the value of space? The urban sprawl and population growth lead to people living in continuously shrinking habitations while the ever-growing market demand keeps doubling the rental and land prices. Prestigious residential areas form around the city centres; less eligible and sought-after boroughs develop in the more remote districts. Accordingly, the market value of the neighbourhoods is defined. It is a dynamic that derives from a desire deeply anchored in the heart of an entire society. We want to be social, connected, in the centre not of something but of everything that happens around us. But is that what we need, too? In a world that is entirely and complexly connected, ironically, we tend to feel lonely in the crowd. The life that the big city offers us can hardly take this loneliness off our shoulders. Is is maybe, after all, just a question of social prestige. ÂŁ16,000 per sq.m. is a genuine piece of London soil, extracted in Hampstead Heath. The work refers to the value of the ground, of the space, of the means one has or has not to inhabit it for the price of the luxury it symbolises. It recounts the privilege of choosing where to live, where to exist, where to be at home. It quotes the insanity of the real estate market and the abstractism of the concrete values enabling it.

ÂŁ 16,000 PER SQ.M.

2013 London soil, Hampstead Heath 100 x 100 x 15 cm

£ 16,000 PER SQ.M.

MARCO CONTINO

£ 16,000 PER SQ.M.

MARCO CONTINO

£ 16,000 PER SQ.M.

MARCO CONTINO

£ 16,000 PER SQ.M.

MARCO CONTINO

£ 16,000 PER SQ.M.

MARCO CONTINO