MATTIA BIAGI - BLACK TAR

On January, Thursday 27 a new show room will open: Officine dell’Immagine.
Located in via Vannucci 13, in Porta Romana area, one of the busiest and most changing of Milan, three friends decided to create a space where devoted to contemporary art.

From 27th january to 6th march 2011, Mattia Biagi (Ravenna 1974), who lives and works in the U.S.A., will open the gallery, with his solo exhibition titled Black tar.

The show will collect about 40 pieces that document the recent work of Mattia Biagi, eclectic and refined talent, able to elaborate an innovative creative process that brought him, after his early times in Milan and his collaboration with designer Giulio Cappellini, to move to Los Angeles and to approach the tar as a way of expressing himself. Upon his arrival, he was inspired by one of the city's most famous landmarks, the La Brea Tar Pits, which would provide the inspiration for Biagi's current body of work. As it happened, the prehistoric site elicited a visceral reaction from the artist.
Here it comes the black tar, creative experience that Mattia Biagi transforms in a ceremony: he covers with tar, with a sophisticated technique, common objects, representative of a personal message. In such a way, the artist creates a new esthetic form that preserves the original structure, by exalting it through a thick layer of tar; the natural light reflects the shiny and flat facets of the object, like a black diamond.
The contrast between recongnizable object and not usable object is one of the key to the reading of this show, where also a tender little bear is not just a childhood memory, but becomes the image of a lost innocence.

“Tar is my expressive way – says Mattia Biagi; I like it because makes solid the black color, still allowing to glimpse the object lines”.

This process doesn't save musical instruments: a harp, a guitar, a viola, objects that won't play anymore but, thanks to black tar, they get a new beauty. Then war weapons, with tar they won't damage anything, death objects without their original function.

Then, the artist considers about religion; tar layed on holy iconography lose every profane connotation, and emphasize his personal faith path.
Jesus save us, a wood 76" tall crucifix, will be the paradigm of this section.

The show comes with a catalog edited by Skira.

Milan, november 2010


MATTIA BIAGI
BLACK TAR
Milan, Officine dell’Immagine
Via Atto Vannucci, 13
27th january – 6th march 2011
Hours: Tuesday - Friday 3 P.M. - 7 P.M. | Saturday 11 A.M. - 7 P.M. Mornings and holidays on appointment.
Free entrance



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