Catalogue > Un extrait vidéo au hasard

Salvatore Arancio

Birds

Film expérimental | super8 | couleur | 6:31 | Italie, Royaume-Uni | 2012

The film shot on Super 8 was filmed at the Zoology museum in Bologna. The museum was founded in 1860 part of the University of Bologna and is the largest and most significant in Italy. Rows and rows of cabinets filled with strangely shaped animals. It traces its roots all the way back to the very first cabinet of curiosity and the collection of Ulisse Aldrovandi, who allegedly coined the word Geology and is undisputedly one of the fathers of natural history. The film follows Arancio?s fascination with the human? s preoccupation to bring order to the world around us and the aesthetics related to the systems of classification used for this purpose. With this work the artist presents us with a subjective vision of the ornithological collection created by Zafagnini-Bertocchi in the first half of the 20th Century. Through the juxtaposition of deep gravitational rumbling sounds by LA cosmic cult music project Expo 70 and Arancio? s precise editing, still close ups and slow camera panning, the film exposes the sinister and uncanny nature of the displays, resulting in an ambiguous temporality, a visionary experience that transcends and transforms the original scientific illustrative purpose of the cabinets.

Born in Catania, Italy in 1974. Lives and works in London. He received his MA in Photography from the Royal College of Art. His artistic signature is photo-etching, but he works across a range of media such as sculpture, collage, animation and video. Arancio?s main interest lies in the potential of images. Departing from their literal meaning, he creates new juxtapositions that are both beautifully evocative and deeply disquieting. He looks to nature and science for his sources of inspiration, while unsettling any hint of the sublime by re-framing the images and the viewer?s experience. His constructed landscapes contain a sense of both the familiar and the unknown that enhances their symbolic readings and implications. Selected exhibitions: PROJECT: Salvatore Arancio, Rachel Cattle & Steve Richards, James Pyman, Maureen Paley Gallery, London, UK, 2013; PROJECT 03: Data, Contemporary Art Society, London, UK, 2013 (group show); Le Ragioni della Pittura. Esisti e prospettive di un medium, Palazzo de Sanctis, Castelbasso (Teramo), Italy, 2013 (group show); Curiosity. Art & the Pleasure of Knowing (Hayward Touring), Turner Contemporary, Margate, UK, 2013, touring to Norwich Castle Museum & Art Gallery, Norwich, UK, Royal Hibernian Academy, Dublin, Ireland, de Appel, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (group show); Cyclorama, Museo Tamayo Arte Contemporáneo, Mexico DF, Mexico (group show), 2013; Alternating Layers of Contrasting Resistance, Rowing Gallery, London, UK; The Little Man of the Forest With the Big Hat, Federica Schiavo Gallery, Rome, Italy; Relatively Absolute, Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge, UK; Solo Presentation, Art Rotterdam 2013-New Art Section, Rotterdam, The Netherlands; The Little Man of the Forest With the Big Hat, MCZ-Museo Carlo Zauli, Faenza, Italy, 2012; An Arrangement of the Materials Ejected, Spacex, Exeter, UK, 2011; To See an Object to See a Light, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Guarene d?Alba, Italy, 2011; Shasta, Federica Schiavo Gallery, Roma, 2011; Sentinel - PPS//Meetings#4, Palazzo Riso - Museo d?Arte Contemporanea della Sicilia, Palermo, Italy, 2011; SI-Sindrome Italiana, Le Magasin - Centre National d?Art contemporain de Grenoble, France, 2010; An Account of the Composition of the Earth?s Crust: Dirt Cones and Lava Bombs, Frame, Frieze Art Fair, London, UK, 2010; Catastrophe? Quelle Catastrophe!, Manif d?Art 5, The Quebec City Biennial, Engramme, Quebec City, Canada, 2010; Prague Biennale 4, Karlin Hall, Prague, Czech Republic, 2009; I giovani che visitano le nostre rovine non vi vedono che uno stile, GAM-Galleria d?Arte Moderna, Turin, Italy, 2009. Arancio was selected fot the Résidences Internationales aux Recollets, Paris, France, 2013; Sundaymorning@ekwc, European Ceramic WorkCentre, SG ?s-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands; Wysing Arts Center Artist Residency, Cambridge, UK and Artist Residency and Ceramic Workshop, Museo Carlo Zauli, Faenza in 2012. He won The Elephant Trust Grant, London and The Art Omi Residency, New York in 2011, the Premio ?New York? in 2009 and was selected for the Bloomberg New Contemporaries in 2006.