Esther Stocker – A Mental Scenario
Fondazione Alberto Peruzzo, Padua
November 11, 2023 – March 03, 2023

The final exhibition of 2023, continuing until March 2024 in the Nave of the Nuova Sant’Agnese, is dedicated to Esther Stocker. This solo exhibition introduces the audience to a new collection of artworks displayed on the walls and throughout the space, creating an immersive environment animated solely by the viewer. Large canvases and floor and wall sculptures create a complex environmental installation characterized by the recurring grid motif surfaces for the volumes, while in the paintings with black backgrounds, the compositional dynamism of white geometric tiles, recalls the movement of stellar matter concentrating before the implosion in the dizzying depths of cosmic space.

The starting point for Stocker, whose work dates back to the mid-1990s, is the orthogonal device of the grid, a characteristic element of the modern movement like few others. Revisited by the artist, she offers a wide range of variants based on processes of collapse, that generate, particularly in site-specific settings, a scenario where conceptual virtuality and physical concreteness coexist and collide, within which the visitor wanders, surprised and disoriented, as if in a dream of paradoxical precision.

The ongoing dialogue between the design proposal realized in the main space of the Nuova Sant’Agnese and the works displayed in the Sacristy extends to a broader historical context of research associated with rational, concrete, neo-constructivist, and optical art. Breaking free from the description of the world and focusing instead on what pertains to the very structure of visual imagery is a lengthy process that spanned the entire last century and continues to engage even the most recent artistic research.

It’s a process of formal reduction concentrating on the constituent elements of artistic representation: lines, colours, elementary geometric shapes, and adherence to the two-dimensional surface, forsaking any artifice-like perspective that could portray an ‘external’ reality.

Starting with a significant core of works from the Alberto Peruzzo Foundation, which includes pieces by Albers, Léger, Biasi, Gard, Dadamaino, and Scheggi, the exhibition was expanded to encompass a selection of abstract-geometric, optical, and kinetic works from the Museo Umbro Apollonio in San Martino di Lupari. This museum was established thanks to the efforts of an artist and organiser like Edoer Agostini and his eight Biennales (featuring works by Kanisza, Le Parc, Horacio Garcia Rossi, Jonquieres, Facchin, Campesan, and Costalonga).

The exhibition is further enriched by works from the collection, created with similar artistic intentions, of the Verifica 8+1 association (featuring pieces by Subero and Glattfelder) donated to the City of Venice. Additionally, there is a contribution from the private collection of the Agostini family (showcasing works by Edoer Agostini and Vasarely).

more. www.fondazionealbertoperuzzo.it