04 Jan 2012

Bios Vincent: 'The wall sounds' at Palazzo Reale o dei Normanni, Palermo

Palermo: after the success of the retrospective Christo and Jeanne Claude (08.07.20111 - 01/08/2012), Palazzo Reale will open the exhibition season of 2012 with BIOS Vincent first solo show in Palermo entitled 'The wall sounds,' curated by Martina Cavallarin. The exhibition will be housed in the Sale Duca di Montalto from January 14 to February 3, 2012.

The Sicilian Parliament is to greet the guests at the Palazzo Reale with a launching ceremony on Friday, January 13, 2012 at 19:00. For the occasion, an unprecedented emotional performance will introduce to the exhibition. 'The wall sounds' is the expected return of the artist in his homeland after the recent artistic experiences in China, in Boston and in Berlin.

The exhibition is under the Patronage of the Sicilian Region, the Sicilian Regional Assembly and the Fondazione Federico II, and promoted by Sicily Promotion Association, with the contribution of Galleria Affiche Milano and Galleria 71 Palermo. Sponsored by URSA Italy SrL.


THE EXHIBITION

A bold exhibition to see and to listen to that confirms the deep interest of the Sicilian Parliament for the dynamics of contamination that contemporary art languages are able to activate. This exhibition is a challenge up to the reconstruction of memory.

BIOS builds for the spaces of the Palazzo Reale a most unusual path, between performance and installation, which runs from the lower floor, where visitors are greeted by videos with the artist's performative acts, to the central hall on the upper floor, where a labyrinthine installation of over 40 large works, 40 towering walls, enveloping the public in coils of matter by strong colors.

BIOS investigates the social dimension focusing on touchy topics such as abortion, ecology, oppression, violence, physical and mental barriers through an art that use performance - in which hunters shoot virtually on a prey, metaphor par excellence, or in which the artist portrays 'Pinocchio' and simulates crucifixions - and wall installations, paintings that become sculpture welcoming color, scarification, objects surrounded by numbers, - 'logo' as 194, a figure that evokes the abortion law in Italy - or words, letters, writings.

Facing panels, dotted with concrete or left almost alive, violated by a specific and targeted use of firearms like Magnum, sinkers, Lupara visitors are carried away by the echo of the shot that sounds like answers ever given, unexpected gifts, disillusioned hope or erased memory: BIOS look at the world from the hole inflicted by bullets on his work. An artistic operation to protect the memory wedged in the concrete surface - a symbol of the 'wall' as urban or mental barrier, bar, or incarceration defense - as the bullets that pierce it to expand the silence and not to lose the memory itself - says exhibition curator Martina Cavallarin.

'Those of Vincent's are the walls of life, telling the story of men who have lived - writes the architect Michele Premoli Silva who designed the exhibition - Walls that, like those of houses in places of combat or conflict, marked by bursts of bullets that have carved their alphabet, remembering that broken lives. BIOS has chosen to tell the life of the world through the wall'. An exposure against any violence done to humanity by humanity.


THE LOCATION

The Palazzo Reale in Palermo better known as Palazzo dei Normanni, was erected during the Arab domination, with features typically defensive, in the highest place of the city, over a Punic settlement located in the section below the current Sale Duca di Montalto. Transformed into a royal palace by the Normans, who made it the nerve center of the city, with Frederico II became the beating heart of the culture of the Kingdom. Today it houses the Sicilian Regional Assembly, that is the Sicilian Parliament. In the Sale Duca di Montalto take place institutional exhibitions of contemporary art.


THE ARTIST

BIOS Vincent
born in Erice, Trapani, on 24.11.1976

His art is borrowed from a unique cultural journey from ancient manuscripts such as graphics or medieval literature, engravings, sacred art and a visionary imagery, and uses all the tools that the artist knows, spatulas, brushes, nets, shells, plastic, textiles, concrete and tangles of matter, objects.
BIOS is currently engaged in the process of environmental installations in which there is the use of renewable energy sources. Since 2000 his work has been exhibited in various solo and group exhibitions in Italy and abroad.

He lives and works in Milan and China and cooperates with several studies of architecture in the development of projects between art and architecture.


INFO

BIOS Vincent | The wall sounds
curated by Martina Cavallarin
from January 14th to February 3th 2012
opening: January 13th 2012 at 7 pm
Palazzo Reale, Sala Duca di Montalto
Piazza Indipendenza, 1 – Palermo - ITALY

Under the Patronage of:
Sicily Region |Sicilian Regional Assembly |Federico II Foundation

Sponsored by:
URSA Italia Srl

With the contribution of: Galleria Affiche - Milano | Galleria 71 - Palermo

Scientific management: Scatola Bianca - Venezia
Exhibition project: Studio Premoli Silva
Communication concept and design project: Tosi comunicazione
Open: Monday-Saturday: 8:30 am - 5:40 pm; on Sundays and (public) holidays: 8:30 am-1:00 pm Ticket: 3 euro
Info: www.federicosecondo.org
Tel: +39 091_6262833

The exhibition is accompanied by a prestigious catalog edited by Federico II Foundation Editore in three languages - italian | english | chinese with essays by Martina Cavallarin | Micol Di Veroli | Michele Premoli Silva