Events/Openings

Galerie Mazzoli presents Michele Spanghero’s third solo exhibition Timber.
The show brings together selected monumental works that have been produced in the last years.
The fil-rouge lays in the addressed materiality, which in turn triggers immaterial spatial circumstances that inhabit and pervade us.
The artworks in the show relate and respond to the gallery, reflecting the artist's primary interest for the structures of perception and display: each work has been recomposed and tuned to the infrastructure, setting up a radically new environment.
What the visitor experiences is a constant shift of perspective and scale: Spanghero interacts with sensory perception in a surprising manner, as if he wanted to take us to a reversed-synaesthetic journey in which he constantly sidetracks and repositions the spectators.
The exhibition title Timber refers, indeed, not only to the corporeal identity of the artworks but also to the timbre (which can also be spelled “timber”), which is what in music distinguishes the particular texture of a given sound.
This swinging is reflected in the shape of the show: on one side the apparent
isolation of the works reflects the human attempt to confine senses and precisely define ranges of perception by providing categories and names; on the other the artist reminds us of the many doors of the gallery space, which channel unexpected data.
The work Sum synthesizes this perspective by combining the acoustic properties of architectural spaces with the natural sound waves of organ pipes and the sine waves played by a dodecahedron loudspeaker. It potentially addresses legions of ears whose perception radically changes accordingly to their position.
Galerie Mazzoli’s exhibition takes the sounding aesthetic as its declared departure point, but with this exhibition it sets a step forward investing on a show that addresses the potential deafness and blindness of visitors.
For instance the artwork Listening Is Making Sense turns wall-positioned wooden beams into monumental piano keys: vibrations can be perceived only by getting one's ears in direct touch with the artwork.
As the exhibition unfolds then sound becomes increasingly thin, absorbed into the physical matter. Indeed, Spanghero’s familiarity with soundscapes, matured in his explorations over more than ten years, allows us to become silent, responding to the sound reduction present in the show.
So, what will we then decide timber to be?
Text by Chiara Ianeselli
Michele Spanghero (Gorizia, Italy 1979) has exhibited his works in various
international venues such as Darb 1718 Center (Cairo), Museum of Modern Art (Istanbul), MAGASIN Centre National d’Art Contemporain (Grenoble), Stroom Foundation (The Hague), Festival Tina-B (Prague), Vžigalica Galerija (Ljubljana), Mestna Galerija (Nova Gorica), Academy of Fine Arts (Cincinnati), Italian Embassy (Brussels), Mart – Museo d'Arte Trento e Rovereto, National Gallery of Umbria, Bevilacqua La Masa Foundation (Venice), Tempio di Adriano in Rome, Galleria Civica (Modena) and was recently selected to take part into the upcoming 16th Quadriennale in Rome.
Spanghero was awarded the Premio In Sesto international public art award (2015), Blumm Prize in Brussels (2013) and Premio Icona (2012).
His works are part of both private and public collections, such as La Gaia Collection, Finstral Collection, Mart – Museo d'Arte Trento e Rovereto, Ettore Fico museum in Turin and Parc01 in Siracusa.
with the kind support of Lunardelli est.1967 and Multiplo