Giovanni Kronenberg
Renata Fabbri is pleased to present Giovanni Kronenberg’s (Milan, 1974) third solo show at the gallery. The exhibition project brings together the artist’s recent production: a series of new sculptural works in dialogue with a selection of drawings.
The artist, throughout a career that now spans two decades, embraces a notion of art conceived as human activity resistant to interpretation or any narrative approach. Kronenberg’s works are marked by the will to present sculptures and drawings that aspire to a continuous re-elaboration of things and meanings, denying or delaying their reduction to critical rhetoric as much as possible. Through artifacts, natural relics or objects that have lost their original function, Kronenberg deforms time and space, producing works that shift between the erosion of meaning and memory, loss of value and historical revisitation. By means of often minimal or basic manipulations and alterations, the artist transforms or associates objects originating from distant times and in no way connectable to each other; reintegrating them into the contemporary via works that renew the status and the history of products that social, civil or industrial human development has extricated from its evolution. To accompany these forms, Kronenberg adds the indecipherable figures produced by his drawings: graphic strokes that stand as enigmatic entities, unresolved in their manifestation, characterised by their relation to an immanent background that makes their visual identification even more distant.
Giovanni Kronenberg was born in Milan in 1974. He lives and works in Milan. In 2020 his first monograph was published, edited by Mousse Publishing and curated by Alessandro Rabottini. Recently, his work was included in the series of interviews Strata Arte Italiana dal 2000, le parole degli artisti, curated by Vincenzo De Bellis and Alessandro Rabottini and published by Lenz.
Renata Fabbri is pleased to present Giovanni Kronenberg’s (Milan, 1974) third solo show at the gallery. The exhibition project brings together the artist’s recent production: a series of new sculptural works in dialogue with a selection of drawings.
The artist, throughout a career that now spans two decades, embraces a notion of art conceived as human activity resistant to interpretation or any narrative approach. Kronenberg’s works are marked by the will to present sculptures and drawings that aspire to a continuous re-elaboration of things and meanings, denying or delaying their reduction to critical rhetoric as much as possible. Through artifacts, natural relics or objects that have lost their original function, Kronenberg deforms time and space, producing works that shift between the erosion of meaning and memory, loss of value and historical revisitation. By means of often minimal or basic manipulations and alterations, the artist transforms or associates objects originating from distant times and in no way connectable to each other; reintegrating them into the contemporary via works that renew the status and the history of products that social, civil or industrial human development has extricated from its evolution. To accompany these forms, Kronenberg adds the indecipherable figures produced by his drawings: graphic strokes that stand as enigmatic entities, unresolved in their manifestation, characterised by their relation to an immanent background that makes their visual identification even more distant.
Giovanni Kronenberg was born in Milan in 1974. He lives and works in Milan. In 2020 his first monograph was published, edited by Mousse Publishing and curated by Alessandro Rabottini. Recently, his work was included in the series of interviews Strata Arte Italiana dal 2000, le parole degli artisti, curated by Vincenzo De Bellis and Alessandro Rabottini and published by Lenz.
Giovanni Kronenberg, Untitled, 2023Coloured pencils, oxidised metal leaf on paper, 36,5x51.5 cm. Ph. Mattia Mognetti
Giovanni Kronenberg, Untitled, 2023Aurisina marble, industrial steel cable, variable dimensions. Ph. Mattia Mognetti
Giovanni Kronenberg, Untitled, 2023Coloured pencils, oxidised metal leaf on paper, 31,5x24 cm. Ph. Mattia Mognetti
Giovanni Kronenberg, Untitled, 2023Coloured pencils and oxidised metal leaf on paper. 31,7x24 cm (each). Ph. Mattia Mognetti
Giovanni Kronenberg, Untitled, 2023Istrian stone, iron, 56x46x56 cm. Ph. Mattia Mognetti
Giovanni Kronenberg, Untitled, 2023Coloured pencils, gold leaf and copper leaf on paper, 46,6x31,5 cm. Ph. Mattia Mognetti
Giovanni Kronenberg, Untitled, 2023Coloured pencils, oxidised metal leaf on paper, 36x51,5 cm. Ph. Mattia Mognetti
Giovanni Kronenberg, Untitled, 2023Iron and steel, 163x21x93 cm. Ph. Mattia Mognetti
Giovanni Kronenberg, Untitled, 2023Coloured pencils and copper leaf on paper, 36,5x25,5 cm. Ph. Mattia Mognetti
The work of Giovanni Kronenberg (Milan, 1974, lives and works in Milan) comprises essentially sculptures and drawings: unusual or rare objects and natural artifacts – like rocks and stones, minerals and precious crystals, horns, bones, furs, sea sponge and ostrich eggs – which the artist defines as “not worn out by gazes”. Often collectible objects, Kronenberg operates on them with minimal insertions and transformations that bring together distant times, often unreachable. Through actions like twisting, occluding, replacement, and superimposition – but also, on the contrary, using slight and temporary interventions – the artist crafts unexpected objects with an eccentric, magnetic, and at the same time disturbing presence. The creation of a “combinatorial grammar” is the operation at the core of his work: a language that effects the slow sedimentation of the evocative qualities inherent in objects, on their subsequent alteration, through forms of intrusion. This relation between objects and reality, mostly ambiguous and elusive, also represents a key to Kronenberg’s drawings. Here, the image, suspended in an abstract dimension, gives rise to a space without references that seems to translate the figure’s presence into a kind of epiphany or apparition.
Among his recent solo shows: Renata Fabbri, Milan (2024, 2017 and 2020); Rizzuto Gallery, Palermo (2023); z2o Sara Zanin, Rome (2016, 2019 and 2022); Quartz Studio, Turin (2020); Galleria Fuoricampo, Siena/Brussels (2014); and Studio Guenzani, Milan (2006, 2007 and 2012). Recent group exhibitions include: Museo Civico Villa La Rinchiostra, Massa (2021); Museo Diocesano, Foligno (2021); z2o Sara Zanin, Rome (2020); Renata Fabbri, Milan (2020); Civic Medieval Museum, Bologna (2020); Basilica Palladiana, Vicenza (2013); MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (2012); The Polish Institute of Rome (2012); Nomas Foundation, Rome (2012); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2011); Castello Colonna di Genazzano, Genazzano (2010); Peep-Hole, Milan (2009 and 2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Lugano (2009); MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome (2007); Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea, Monfalcone (2008); Arte all’Arte X, San Gimignano (2005); Viafarini, Milan (2004 and 2005); and Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como (2003).
The work of Giovanni Kronenberg (Milan, 1974, lives and works in Milan) comprises essentially sculptures and drawings: unusual or rare objects and natural artifacts – like rocks and stones, minerals and precious crystals, horns, bones, furs, sea sponge and ostrich eggs – which the artist defines as “not worn out by gazes”. Often collectible objects, Kronenberg operates on them with minimal insertions and transformations that bring together distant times, often unreachable. Through actions like twisting, occluding, replacement, and superimposition – but also, on the contrary, using slight and temporary interventions – the artist crafts unexpected objects with an eccentric, magnetic, and at the same time disturbing presence. The creation of a “combinatorial grammar” is the operation at the core of his work: a language that effects the slow sedimentation of the evocative qualities inherent in objects, on their subsequent alteration, through forms of intrusion. This relation between objects and reality, mostly ambiguous and elusive, also represents a key to Kronenberg’s drawings. Here, the image, suspended in an abstract dimension, gives rise to a space without references that seems to translate the figure’s presence into a kind of epiphany or apparition.
Among his recent solo shows: Renata Fabbri, Milan (2024, 2017 and 2020); Rizzuto Gallery, Palermo (2023); z2o Sara Zanin, Rome (2016, 2019 and 2022); Quartz Studio, Turin (2020); Galleria Fuoricampo, Siena/Brussels (2014); and Studio Guenzani, Milan (2006, 2007 and 2012). Recent group exhibitions include: Museo Civico Villa La Rinchiostra, Massa (2021); Museo Diocesano, Foligno (2021); z2o Sara Zanin, Rome (2020); Renata Fabbri, Milan (2020); Civic Medieval Museum, Bologna (2020); Basilica Palladiana, Vicenza (2013); MACRO – Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome (2012); The Polish Institute of Rome (2012); Nomas Foundation, Rome (2012); Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin (2011); Castello Colonna di Genazzano, Genazzano (2010); Peep-Hole, Milan (2009 and 2010); Museum of Contemporary Art, Lugano (2009); MAXXI – National Museum of XXI Century Arts, Rome (2007); Galleria Comunale d’Arte Contemporanea, Monfalcone (2008); Arte all’Arte X, San Gimignano (2005); Viafarini, Milan (2004 and 2005); and Fondazione Antonio Ratti, Como (2003).
- Giovanni Kronenberg
- Sophie Ko,
- Serena Vestrucci,
- Giovanni Kronenberg
Museo del Novecento, Milan
April 10 – June 30, 2024
Curated by Mariuccia Casadio
- Giovanni Kronenberg
Curated by Vincenzo de Bellis and Alessandro Rabottini
- Giovanni Kronenberg
- Sophie Ko,
- Giovanni Kronenberg
April 1-3, 2022
Established
Pav. 3 – Booth B07
