San Francisco Museum of Modern Art presents New Work: Alessandro Pessoli, an exhibition on view September 28, 2012, through February 10, 2013.
Alessandro Pessoli, The son of P, 2012; spray paint and oil pastel on paper; 24 x 19 in.; courtesy greengrassi, London; and Anton Kern Gallery, New York; © Alessandro Pessoli; photo: Robert Wedemeyer.
This exhibition highlights the artist’s diverse range of art making since relocating from Milan to the United States in 2009, bringing together 40 recent graphite drawings and a selection of works on paper and ceramic sculptures. Together, these pieces reveal an imaginative, organic meditation on Modernism, mythology, childhood, and the artistic persona.
The exhibition is organized by Jenny Gheith, assistant curator of painting and sculpture at SFMOMA, and marks the latest installment of the museum’s ongoing New Work series, which continues to feature the most innovative expressions of contemporary art.
Alessandro Pessoli’s (b. 1963) drawings, paintings, and sculptures place expressive, often melancholy figures in indeterminate spaces and dreamlike narratives. By turns cynical, sincere, or absurd, his fictional constructions engage a recurring cast of characters and symbols such as musicians, a candle with a flame, a guitar, a phallus, and a cross. These stock figures and forms function as the artist’s personal commedia dell’arte, which he continually reimagines and recreates.
luidly moving across media and shifting between two- and three-dimensional forms, Pessoli typically works in series and presents related pieces together. His figures in all media are realized without sketches or models and are formed through a process of layering and erasure, revealing marks suggestive of previous states. Drawing is central to Pessoli’s creative process, and his art is charged with visible remains of his touch. For his ceramics, he uses majolica, a sculptural technique made popular in Northern Italy during the Renaissance. This medium provides a rich surface on which he can continue to develop the handcrafted characters that inform his drawings and paintings.
Pessoli renders his seemingly restless and exaggerated characters in a manner that is rich in historical references to visual culture including fine art, cinema, and theater. Figures reminiscent of Pablo Picasso’s character studies or the biting 19th century caricatures of Honoré Daumier frequently appear, as do scenes that echo films by Federico Fellini. Science fiction and cartoons are other sources that, when layered and mixed with personal references, add to Pessoli’s complex visual lexicon.
The artist’s SFMOMA presentation will feature two series of pencil drawings and a related ceramic sculpture created in 2010 during his first year in California; before now, these works have only been shown in Europe. At times humorous, dark, and perverse, these compositions have a sketchlike immediacy and a strong connection to cinematic sequencing. Using these earlier pieces as a starting point, Pessoli has created a new series of vibrantly painted mixed-media works on paper and majolica sculptures from 2012 that will be on view for the first time with this presentation. These works introduce a brighter palette and new imagery drawn from children’s stories, Etruscan funerary practices, and astronomy.
Born in Cervia, Italy, Pessoli studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bologna, and currently lives and works in Los Angeles, California. He has had solo exhibitions at Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia (2011); MACRO Museo d’Arte Contemporane di Roma (2009); The Chisenhale, London (2005); and The Drawing Center, New York (1997). His work has also been included in exhibitions throughout Europe and the United States, such as Making Worlds, the Italian Pavilion at the 53rd Biennale di Venezia (2009); Jean-Luc Blanc, Opera Rock, CAPC, Bordeaux (2009); Italics: Italian Art between Tradition & Revolution 1968–2008, Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2008); RAW-Among the Ruins, Marres, Centre for Contemporary Culture, Maastricht (2007); After Cezanne, The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2005); and International Paper, UCLA Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2003). His work has been shown at galleries internationally including greengrassi, London; Marc Foxx, Los Angeles; Xavier Hufkens, Brussels; Studio Guenzani, Milan; and Anton Kern, New York, where a solo show of his work will be on view September 14 through October 20, 2012.
Visit www.sfmoma.org or call 415.357.4000 for more information.