Mario Dellavedova, QUASI PURO ESERCIZIO FORMALE

Room 19

For Giorni Felici the decision was made to go straight into the details: canvases that recall traditional motifs from the Mexican southwest, naturally dyed and woven on hand looms… That provide a backdrop for neon lettering (glacially warm luminosity)… Of the aporia genre… Song texts… Multilingual phrases. Like refined roughness. A conjunction or conjugation of regional, local, ancestral and globalised modernity… As an “almost purely formal exercise”.
Mario Dellavedova

The artist’s style is not easily identifiable, as it is intentionally “deconstructed” in favour of multiple and constructive interpretations. His works, which range over different fields, reach from painting, sculpture and installations to other media, drawing on objects, materials and languages from past and contemporary cultures. These elements are broken down and recomposed, reset and reworked so that they acquire a logical sense or a simple and obvious justification that is not so evident at first glance, especially if they are grouped together and not accumulated. The written word, often used by the artist, is removed from its cultural sphere to be formalised through improbable objects that at the same time characterise its status, offering the spectator a reflection on the role of the artist and the language of art, circumventing its privileges. The play on words, the metaphor, the subtle irony bring us back to a conceptual sphere that purposely contrasts with the sometimes artisanal aspect of the artefacts produced or used and the simplicity of putting them together.
Carlotta Testori

Mario Dellavedova was born in Legnano in 1958. He graduated in architecture and now lives between Taxco in Mexico and Villastanza, in the province of Milan. His works have been exhibited in many museums and galleries in Italy and abroad: in Japan, the United States, China, Mexico, Germany, Austria and Spain. He held his first solo exhibition in 1984 at the Rocca d’Angera. In 1987 he exhibited at the Corrado Levi studio in Milan and at the Guido Carbone Gallery in Turin, in 1987 at the Le Case d’Arte Gallery in Cologne and in 1990 at Le Case d’Arte in Milan, in 1991 at the Galleria in Arco in Turin, in 1992 and 1995 at the Sperone Gallery in Rome and in 1993 at the New York branch of the same gallery. In 1996 he held an exhibition at the Stadtpark Gallery in Krems, in 1997 at the 1000eventi Gallery in Milan and in 2000 the Galleria Mazzoli in Modena hosted two personal exhibitions. In the same year he held a solo show at the Museo de las Artes in Guadalajara, Mexico, in 2003 the exhibition And all that remains is founded by poets at the Sperone – Westwater Gallery in New York and in 2004 Domestic lights, domestic flights, domestic delights at the Sprovieri Gallery in London. In 2009 some of his latest works were presented at Galleria Mazzoli in Modena on the occasion of the exhibition ABCD…Benvenuto, Chucchi, Dellavedova.