primo gusto
orange and lemon verbena
Opening, 18.10.2024, 6pm
19.10.2024 – 26.01.2025
The creative collaboration of Ross Birrell (born 1969 in Paisley, Scotland) and David Harding (born 1937 in Edinburgh, Scotland) began in 2005 with the film Port Bou: 18 Fragments for Walter Benjamin which premiered at Kunsthalle Basel in 2006. Birrell, Professor and Senior Researcher at The Glasgow School of Art, employs a range of media including film, sculpture, installation, music and text to produce works which interweave contexts of poetry, philosophy, politics, and place. David Harding founded the
influential Department of Environmental Art at The Glasgow School of Art in 1985. His engagement with art in public space made him reconsider a concept of the work which focusses on the medium and regards context as an equivalent, if not more important aspect of the artwork.
Birrell’s and Harding’s joint works were shown at documenta 14, Kunsthalle Basel, Talbot Rice Gallery, Edinburgh, Glasgow International, Galeri Rotor Gothenburg, Swiss Institute in Rome, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Portikus, Frankfurt am Main, and Virginia Museum of Contemporary Art, Virginia Beach, USA. Their Symphony of Sorrowful Songs, a concert for the opening of documenta 14, involved the Athens State Orchestra (ASO) and Syrian Expat Philharmonic Orchestra (SEPO) and was performed in the Megaron Concert Hall in Athens. The concert formed the basis of the film installation, Tryptych, Trinity Apse commissioned for Edinburgh Art Festival (2018) and a related recital with the Damascus Quintet of SEPO at The Scottish Parliament (2018).
A poet and self-taught painter, Cucchi has been a key figure in Italian art since the 1970s. Known for his highly expressive and lyrical paintings, he continues to explore materiality by experimenting with various media and contexts to expand the boundaries of his work.
Enzo Cucchi (b. 1949, Ancona, Italy) currently lives and works in Rome. Since the 1970s, Cucchi has presented numerous solo exhibitions in institutions worldwide. Among these stand out the Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (1983), The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York (1986), Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris (1986), Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, München (1987), Wiener Secession, Vienna (1988), Hamburger Kunsthalle, Hamburg (1992), Castello di Rivoli, Turin (1993), Sezon Museum of Art, Tokyo (1996), Deichtorhallen Hamburg, Hamburg (1999), Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv (1999 and 2001), Villa Medici, Rome (2006) and MAXXI, Rome (2023).
Italian-born, Los Angeles–based artist Piero Golia is a sculptor of situations. His works—which at times take physical form, often at an architectural scale, and at others are immaterial—are statements aimed at expanding the possibilities of art. His practice is heterogeneous and unpredictable, employing diverse mediums and methods to spark chain reactions that, even when they leave no objects or images behind, have the capacity to alter our perception.
His works have been exhibited at major international institutions: Castel Sant’Elmo, Naples; Istituto Svizzero (Roma, Venezia); Biennale di Venezia (Art and Cinema); Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Villa Medici, Rome; La Fondazione, Rome; Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; Kunsthaus Baselland, Basel; Museo Jumex, Mexico City; Site Santa Fe, 7a Biennal Santa Fe; Le Carré d’art, Nîmes; Sculpture Center, New York; Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla Y León, León. Golia's paintings and sculptures have entered public collections, including the Los Angeles County Museum of Art; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Witte de With, Rotterdam; and MoMA PS1, New York.
Infused with an ethos of economy, Overton employs everyday, elemental materials to engage with a site, its geographical location and history. Wooden planks, beams, metal, mud, sheetrock and bricks – things commonly associated with construction work or farming – are cut, bent, stacked and hammered into shape, often pushing the material to its physical limit. The objects used can be salvaged and recycled from one project to the next, found in situ or in the environs of the exhibition space. Evincing the power and sensory quality of their own textural materials, her sculptures and installations, through their new functionality, expose the energy and associations encapsulated within their parts. ‘I like for the work to act as a marker of its own history – letting accrued defects show in the pieces – that talks about the ways in which the materials have been used’, she explains.
Virginia Overton was born in Nashville, Tennessee in 1971 and lives and works in Brooklyn, New York. Solo exhibitions include Landcraft Garden Foundation, Mattituck, New York (2023); Hypermaremma, Orbetello, Italy (2023); Frist Art Museum, Nashville (2022); Goldsmiths CCA, London (2022); White Cube Hong Kong (2020); Socrates Sculpture Park, New York (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art Tucson, Arizona (2017); Whitney Museum of American Art, New York (2016); The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum, Ridgefield, Connecticut (2016); Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami (2014); Westfälischer Kunstverein, Münster, Germany (2013); Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland (2013); The Power Station, Dallas, Texas (2013); and The Power House, Memphis, Tennessee (2007). Group exhibitions include 59th Venice Biennale (2022); The Ranch, Montauk, New York (2021); Hayward Gallery, London (2020); Front Triennial, Cleveland (2018); Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, Michigan (2017); and Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (2016).
Using classic materials that are in keeping with Italy’s pictorial tradition, Politi developed an approach straddling processes that are personal and that take place in the studio, even as he engages in producing images that would appear spontaneous. The studio thus morphs into both container and object of his work; the diverse output of his painting can even cross over in the use of sculpture to enable him to better narrate the struggle of being a contemporary painter. As he sets about redefining contemporary abstract painting the artist does not shy away from relying on personal experience and happenings in his life; as he channels paramount themes such as love, friendship and sexuality he keeps up a constant effort to idolise whatever materials he works with.
Gianni Politi was born in Rome where he lives and works. His work has been exhibited in various institutions in Italy and abroad including The National Gallery, Barberini Corsini National Galleries, Nomas Foundation, Maxxi, Macro in Rome; Triennale di Milano; Fonderia Battaglia, in Milan; Palazzo Zino, Palermo; Institute of Italian Culture, Prague; Celeste Prize, New York.
Sosnowska’s sculptural language emerges from a process of experimentation with, and the appropriation of, construction materials such as steel beams, concrete, reinforcing rods, and pipes. These elements—the solid and rigid foundations of buildings—are manipulated and warped, taking on an independence in which their former functionality is implied yet defunct.
In her recent works, Sosnowska has incorporated elements of modernist architecture and recognisable details including staircases, handrails, gates, and window structures to create unexpected, even uncanny, encounters. She treats buildings as a site of memory and is adept at conveying both political and psychological significance through her work. She quotes architectural irregularities, collaging different elements together to form a whole that appears at once confused, yet intentionally and attractively designed. Space is encountered as a psychosomatic quality, as political as its experience is personal, forever veering in the mind of the viewer between the uncanny and the sublime.
Born in Ryki, Poland, Sosnowska's work has been exhibited in international exhibitions and museums, such as: 13th Sharjah Biennial, Sharjah, Lebanon; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis MN; The Contemporary Austin, Austin TX; Indianapolis Museum of Art; Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw; Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw; Galleria Civica, Modena; Shanghai Biennale; Venice Biennale; Kwangiu Biennale; Manifesta 4, Frankfurt; Den Haag Sculptuur, Den Haag; Witte de With, Rotterdam; Schaulager, Basel; Centre Pompidou, Paris.