Transit-1
Curated by Adriana Rispoli/ Eugenio Viola/ William Wells
From Thu, 26 March 2009
To Mon, 04 May 2009

 

 

The exhibition grew out of the meeting between the young Neapolitan artist Domenico Antonio Mancini with the two Egyptian artists Sherif El-Azma and Nermine El Ansari, who spent a short period of residence in Naples, just as Mancini was enabled to have the same experience in Cairo. The works produced, all rigorously site-specific, derive their inspiration from reflections on geographically circumscribed socio-cultural situations which become universalized by activating a series of short-circuits in history, the present and the past with its weighty inheritance.
The works are unified conceptually by the meta-temporal use of symbol, understood as an analogic and inter-subjective sign which communicates a message comprehensible to the community through an emotional path. They investigate the power of representation through the media and the narrow boundary line between real and virtual, subjective and objective, past and present.
The eagle, the emblem of power and dominion which traverses the whole of history, from the Roman empire to Saladin, from the Habsburg and Tsarist empires to the totalitarian regimes, is inverted in its significance in Mancini’s installation, an intervention that extends into Alighiero&Boetti’s exhibit on the third floor of the museum, presenting a metaphorical excursus that takes its cue from Boetti’s singular attitude and links his research into otherness to the theoretical setting of the Project Room. Mancini presents a bitter reflection on neocolonialism, the subtle Eurocentric influence of a less obvious domination than military intervention but one that is equally deleterious.
The evocative polisemy of the symbol, capable of superseding cultural, historical, social and linguistic boundaries, returns in the work of El-Azma | El Ansari, who juxtapose the San Paolo soccer stadium in Naples with its ideal predecessor: the Roman amphitheater in Pompeii. Two symbolic structures reduced to a simulacrum in a work that reflects on the meaning of events and their mythicization, on the temporal collocation and universal projection of a desire to belong to a community, in the past as in the present.
Domenico Antonio Mancini was born in Naples where he lives and works. He has taken part in numerous exhibitions including: Same Democracy (neon>campobase, Bologna); Sistema Binario (Stazione di Mergellina, Naples / Railway Station, Belgrade); CLASSROOM#1 (Museo Madre, Naples); Dai Tempo al Tempo (Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene), 2008.

Sherif El-Azma (1975) and Nermine El Ansari (1975) live and work in Cairo. They worked together on the project "The Psychogeography of Loose Associations", performed at venues which included the KVS Brussels, Bethanien Berlin, HAU Berlin, CIC Cairo, Alexandria Library, The Modern Art Museum in Kiel Germany, Ashkal Alwan Beirut. Their works have been exhibited in numerous spaces including the Espace Karim Francis and the Townhouse Gallery Cairo; Witte De Witte Rotterdam; Zico House Beirut; Camden Arts Centre, London.

Special thanks to:
Riccardo Abbamondi
Luca Marra
Pierpaolo Pacelli
Stefano Saggiomo for Ikebana Records
Johnnie Shand-Kydd

INFORMATION
Location Naples, Museo Madre – Via Settembrini, 79 Naples

Information and
bookings Telephone: 081 19313016
(Monday – Sunday: 10 a.m.– 8 p.m.)

Website www.museomadre.it

Opening times from Monday to Friday 10 a.m. – 9 p.m.
Saturday and Sunday 10 a.m. – 12 p.m.
Closed: Tuesday

Admission charges Full: € 7.00
Reduced: € 3.50
Free every Monday

Audio-guide € 4.00

To reach the Museum
from Capodichino airport
and from the Stazione Centrale: Taxi (about 10/15 minutes)
L’AliBus: Bus 3S leaves every 15 minutes, alight at the Stazione Centrale (Piazza Garibaldi) and from here take the subway Linea 2; get out at the Cavour station and walk some 200 meters.
The exhibition is part of the circuit CampaniaArtecard www.campaniartecard.it

Press Office MADRE
Costanza Pellegrini : +39 081 19978024 – fax: +39 081 19978026
e-mail: pellegrini@museomadre.it
Electa
Ilaria Maggi: +39 02 21563250 – fax: + 39 0221563314 e-mail: imaggi@mondadori.it
Carolina Perreca: + 390814297435 fax: +39 081 4297433 e-mail: comunicazione.napoli.electa@mondadori.it