Exhibition · Artopia Gallery · Milano
Artopia is delighted to present two solo shows, opening to the public at Via Lazzaro Papi 2, in Milan, from Thursday 14 May to Friday 10 July. On the ground floor, “Simultanea" by Eleanor Ekserdjian, and on the upper floor, “How to Hold An Ocean with Four Hands” by the duo Danish & Maitre. Though developed independently, the two exhibitions engage in a dialogue across space. The large space running along the length of the floor plan divides the gallery into two floors and, together with other distinctive architectural features, facilitates visual communication between the two levels. The two exhibition projects, which thus coexist harmoniously within the architectural setting, also reveal similarities from a thematic perspective. Eleanor Ekserdjian, a British artist of Armenian heritage, presents a body of work exploring the layered nature of cultural memory. Through painting, camera-less photography and video, she gives form to what she describes as “simultaneous landscape”, in which the scenery of Armenia and the UK meet and intertwine. From the other, the French duo Danish & Maitre pursue a research project into the traces of an ancient knowledge: Egyptian blue, an emblem of a remote understanding that both withdraws and reveals itself in its aura of mystery. What emerges is an almost initiatory journey, gradually unfolding through a series of clue-like works. On the ground floor, “Simultanea", the first solo exhibition in Italy by Eleanor Ekserdjian (London, 1996), whose title evokes the core of her artistic practice: a pictorial and filmic approach built upon superimpositions and co-presences. The artist’s practice takes the form of a hybrid language, in which painting, drawing and moving images coexist in a dynamic tension. Through a rapid pictorial gesture, the artist captures and renders traces, evoking a dimension suspended between presence and fading. Ekserdjian draws from films she has made in Armenia and the UK, subsequently reworked through a process…