Curated by Laura Cherubini.

For the first time, Galleria Michela Rizzo compares two of the greatest artists of the second half of the XX century and the first part of the XXI.

Having worked with both artists on several occasions in the past and starting from an idea of the curator Laura Cherubini, in conjunction with the 58th International Art Exhibition- Biennale di Venezia, the Venetian gallery presents the exhibition MAURI | MUNTADAS, which will be held from 9 May to 31 August, 2019, in the former brewery at the Giudecca.

Despite their different approaches to art, these two eclectic artists uniquely investigate and analyze the pressing issues that affect the contemporary social landscape. In the exhibition, they address various themes, but the two key-words are Power and Manipulation, which for Fabio Mauri define the Fascist and Nazi totalitarian regimes, whereas for Antoni Muntadas are to be found in the mechanisms of propaganda and censorship of contemporary society. As a matter of fact, Mauri’s art, as well as Muntadas’, can be considered intrinsically political.

Fabio Mauri focuses on History and on how it intersects and clashes with the fate of individuals, who against humankind’s shared destiny invariably oppose their conscience, which results from their own unique experience. A sizable historical Screen opens the exhibition: a monochrome representing cinema and television, a blank screen ready to accommodate anything that is projected onto it, anything that stems from private, inner worlds. In Mauri’s own words: “In my mind, the screen had become a witness to history, a kind of opaque mirror that could still retain and contain what the external world projected onto it…”
The urban space (and what today happens therein) is the vast and articulated field of action that Antoni Muntadas has chosen. While using different artistic languages, his works are characterized by the criticism and analysis of the systems of representation and information. Muntadas investigates the various forms of power, devoting special attention to the hidden or only partially evident forms with which power often reveals itself and operates. More than by executing works that are finished and perfected, Muntadas presents the public with works that require the viewer’s active participation. Emblematic is the large banner entitled Beware: Perception Requires Commitment, which was the statement of the Spain Pavilion in 2005, and which this exhibition takes back to Venice after several years.

The show features some of Fabio Mauri’s iconic and unpublished works as well as and some historical works by Antoni Muntadas exhibited in Italy for the first time. The work of the two artists is still unsurpassed, constituting an inexhaustible source for the willing-to-engage observers and an inspiration for the artists attracted to the ability to encapsulate project and semantic consistency into formally simple solutions.