Exhibition views of 'Amikejo: Pennacchio Argentato', Laboratorio 987, MUSAC, León, Spain 29 January – 27 March 2011
Sun, Jan 30 2011Amikejo (‘place of great friendship’ in Esperanto) is a series of four exhibitions taking place throughout 2011 at MUSAC’s Laboratorio 987 and structured around relational and spatial twinning. These artistic pairings involve various modes of binomial friendships – couples in life, dedicated duos, intermittent work partners, as well as new allies (+info...)
For the first of four exhibitions at the Laboratorio 987 neapolitan duo Pennacchio Argentato present a new installation based on expectations about performativity and interactivity in exhibition spaces. By transforming the exhibition space into an interior akin to an abstract fitness gymnasium, the duo frame their own activity as young artists alongside that of Amikejo by addressing the ideas of leisure and overproduction, a continuation to their recent research on apparent fakery, alternative economies and geometric abstraction.
A series of rough concrete ‘muscular’ sculptures, of dimensions that immediately relate to the human form. These seemingly promise engagement through, as the artists describe, they offer ‘different postures and gestures’ without leading to any specific mode of exercise. The unresponsive and non-receptive sculptures attempt to represent a kind of pleasure in suspenseful endurance or ‘abstract fatigue’, as the artists have termed it, a style which is set apart from acting and from making.
Alongside this seemingly inactive machinery, a companion sculpture focusses more specifically on body building. Images of former professional bodybuilder Arnold Schwarzenegger proudly revealing his muscles prompts us to consider, within the context of an art space, a self-made aesthetics based on pose and theatricality.
Marisa Argentato (born Naples, Italy, 1977) & Pasquale Pennacchio (born Caserta, Italy, 1979). Live and work in Berlin and Naples). Solo exhibitions include: 'Five o’clock shadows', T293, Rome (2010); 'The New Boring', Midway Contemporary Art, Minneapolis (2010); 'Landings 4', Landings, Vestfossen, Norway (2010); 'Do It Just', Galerie Opdahl, Berlin (2009); 'Estate', T293, Naples (2007) and 'Blind Date', Viafarini, Milan (2002). Group exhibitions include: 'SI - Sindrome Italiana', Magasin, Centre National d'Art Contemporain de Grenoble, Grenoble (2010); 'Dude, where's my Career?', MMK Zollamt / Portikus, Frankfurt (2009); 'A long time ago, last night', Gallery Kortil, Rijeka, Croatia (2008); 'Aspen Project' (Part III), Neue Alte Brücke, Frankfurt am Main (2007); 'Cinema infinito / Neverending Cinema', Galleria Civica d’Arte Contemporanea, Trento (2006).
MUSAC - Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León
Avenida de los Reyes Leoneses, 24 - 24008 León
www.musac.es
Tuesday– Friday: 10–15 / 17–20h; Saturday and Sunday: 11–15/ 17–21h; Mondays closed
Photos: Latitudes | www.lttds.org (unless credited otherwise)
