Galleria de' Foscherari – Bologna
The Connoisseur’s Room
23 October – 15 December 2004
Bologna, Galleria de' Foscherari
curated by Valerio Dehò
For “The Connoisseur’s Room”, Mondino has created the room of an art connoisseur within the gallery. A veritable installation with walls draped in red fabric and numerous elements that make up the space. Objects and paintings that encapsulate the artist’s most famous series of works created over the years, but above all an image of a world full of taste and irony. Paintings on the walls and sculptures coexist in harmony with pieces of furniture from the artist’s home.
A series of paintings dedicated to Jack Russell, breeder of the eponymous dogs, are juxtaposed with splendid jewellery pieces that reproduce some of the sculptures created by the artist throughout his career. A microcosm in which there is also room for an irreverent ‘bad teacher’ (but also a schoolboy) who, in a ‘precious’ oval, synthesises a hybrid of Toni Negri and Maurizio Cattelan, a visual pun. The room reveals itself as a universe populated by cherished objects, but also a brief yet truthful history of Aldo Mondino’s art.
The gallery’s entrance hall is dedicated to orchids.
A series of paintings dedicated to Jack Russell, breeder of the eponymous dogs, are juxtaposed with splendid jewellery pieces that reproduce some of the sculptures created by the artist throughout his career. A microcosm in which there is also room for an irreverent ‘bad teacher’ (but also a schoolboy) who, in a ‘precious’ oval, synthesises a hybrid of Toni Negri and Maurizio Cattelan, a visual pun. The room reveals itself as a universe populated by cherished objects, but also a brief yet truthful history of Aldo Mondino’s art.
The gallery’s entrance hall is dedicated to orchids.
It is transformed into a greenhouse, or rather a place where orchids are admired and cultivated.
The illusionistic interplay between sculpture and painting continues, as always in Mondino’s work.
There is a physical and mental continuity between the paintings and the faience orchids. The world of the flowers most renowned globally for their beauty and sensuality comes alive with delicate presences, transparencies and exquisitely refined visual effects.
This project, too, lives within the space for which it was conceived; paintings and installations have an autonomous life precisely because they were created for a shared space. A long wall featuring portraits of famous naturalists contrasts with the poetic nature of the flowers, yet evokes the relationship between science and nature, between the need for classification and the infinite variety of beauty—the dialectic between the logic of art and that of science.
Exhibition poster for "The Connoisseur's Room"
Jongleur o Autoritratto, 2003
bronzo, vetro soffiato di murano e acciaio
87,5 × 28,5 cm
Parson J. Russel, (s.d.).
olio su linoleum
222 × 120 cm