Pregressa

Renata Fabbri arte contemporanea is pleased to announce Pregressa, a solo exhibition by Italian artist Giovanni Termini.

Pregressa should be considered not so much a traditional exhibition experience, rather a sort of exhibition based on the preparation for an exhibition. In doing so, the artist intends to suggest to the audience a sort of work-in-progress, and thereby put several things into question…

Since the beginning, Termini has been building (rather than “sculpting”) his work using material that is previously “contextualized”, in order to challenge the exhibition space and how one usually experiences an art exhibition in a particular gallery space. By manipulating the relationship between objects and their context, the artist is seeking to empty the container (gallery) of its usual content (artwork) and put into question our fetishism of the artifact.

After studying the architectural layout of the gallery, Termini reflected upon the peculiarity of this particular exhibition space, which in the case of Renata Fabbri arte contemporanea, develops vertically rather than horizontally. Consequently, he decided to lower to eye-level that which is usually placed overhead, and in so doing, obstructing that which is usually seen. In this two-fold artistic operation, the viewer is invited to consider a typical exhibition’s installation, or set-up.

The show, divided into two main parts, has been conceived as both unitary and complimentary despite its confrontational stature. In the first room we experience a situation of suspension. As he has done before, Giovanni Termini insists on giving visibility to the work–in-progress, which provokes the viewer to question one’s expectations of both “artwork” as well as “what is a finished artwork”. Specifically, the track lighting has been removed from the ceiling and presented on metal supports. By separating the object from its inherent function of lighting the gallery, the artist compels the viewer to pay more attention to the individual elements which are usually employed to present artwork in a gallery.

As opposed to the emphasis on the track lighting in the first room, the second space’s walls have been completely obscured by panels used on construction sites. By masking the walls, the paneling interferes with how the viewer would normally regard the exhibition space.

The exhibition, Pregressa is not a protest against the traditional art system. Rather, Giovanni Termini explores analytically the contexts in which we exhibit and experience art; and more precisely, the role and identity of the art gallery. With this project, Termini sets for himself the goal of unveiling and, at the same time, subverting the genesis of an art exhibition.