Curated by Maria Chiara Klinger Mazzarino

Saturday 08 October 2016

The Michela Rizzo Gallery is pleased to present Penelope, the new work of the Argentine artist Marcela Cernadas conceived for the spaces of the Gallery's garden. The performance will be introduced by the curator of the project Maria Chiara Klinger Mazzarino and interpreted by the actress Ilaria Pasqualetto.
The event will take place concurrently with the artist's exhibitions scheduled both at MACRO in Rome, for the first edition of the # Animali Festival with the patronage of the Senato della Reppublica and at Palazzo Cittadini Stampa in Abbiategrasso for the Other Animals exhibition, with the patronage of the Brera Academy.
The presence of performance in Marcela Cernadas' work was as tenacious as it was subtle. The ritual construction of the sets in his videos and photographs rigorously studied and populated with natural and perishable elements: fruits, cut roses, ritual berries, shells and carnations, has from time to time established a direct relationship with the idea of ​​luxury. , still life and the ephemeral typical of forms of representation such as video and performance. The presence of the human or animal figure has always appeared in a fragmentary and oscillating way but these figures, in the slowness of the years, seem to "emerge" from pure light into pure bodily presence.
Michela Rizzo, who almost a decade ago revealed a very reserved side of the artist's work and his reflection on the sacred, supporting the site-specific installation Velamina in the church of San Salvador and more recently the CarneVale project in the church of San Lio both in Venice, once again reveals another intimate side of Cernadas' studio modus operandi by opening the gallery garden as a metaphorical and symbolic place and at the same time as a place for sharing the creative gesture with the public.
Maria Chiara Klinger Mazarin comments: A single word makes up the title of the performance, a feminine name capable of evoking myth and slowness without delay; weft, warp and eternity; love and litany; riddle and surprise; the double ritual of fidelity and cruelty: Penelope. This is the title that Marcela has chosen for her autumn performance, in an attempt to emphasize a precise poetic and at the same time create a passage open to contemplation, to the possibility of waiting for the essential and stripped-down gesture of the performative act to slowly amplify. in the mythical and artistic sensibility of those who are able to "hope".
The Penelope performance was born from the video of the same name shot in Venice in 2008. What one sensed at that time from the fingertips of a slender figure and his gesture of “embroidering” pomegranate fruit seeds on the fragment of fabric - a relic of the fabric used in the Velamina installation - today it manifests itself in all the strength of a "female figure present", crowned by its own beauty and surrounded by the voluptuousness of the fruit buds, by the scarlet red pulp of pomegranates, by the footprints they will leave his gestures on the clear fabric that is of time, life and expectation. All in the "figure of the permanent and mythical instant of the garden", which reveals and hides, which inexorably transforms everything into the hour of representation and the hour of remembrance.
Marcela Cernadas, born in Argentina, has been working for some time both in her country of origin and in Italy and Spain. His research and artistic productions, to which are added her writings in a constant intellectual and poetic production, highlight the privileged topics of her work: food and light as vital figures and art as a vital figure too. '. Active for years on the international scene, her work has been interpreted and welcomed in different areas of thought, through gender, academic and religious interpretations. You have exhibited in the Venice Biennale, and in various museums, foundations, and festivals. Her works that including video, film, photography, painting, sculpture and installations are found in prestigious private collections and in European and American museums.