Gaep at miart 2022: preview of the presentation
Our presentation for the 2022 edition of the international art fair miart (April 1-3, Milan) features works by Sebastian Moldovan and Mihai Plătică, two artists who employ drawing, photography and sculptural objects, often in ingenious ways, to investigate the nature of matter. Both are interested in deconstructing natural patterns and phenomena in order to explore themes such as chaos, regeneration, loss and vitality. Additionally, they tend to subvert viewers’ expectations, leading us into a territory where we reflect on what is seen and visible versus what is unseen and invisible.
In his new works on paper An Unlikely Series of Fortunate Events (2021-2022), Sebastian Moldovan “subtracted” himself from the image-making process. By using a mechanical device as simple as a potter’s wheel, he let the forms grow themselves and self-organize. The circular forms lend themselves to readings on different scales. One might interpret them as cell structures under a microscope, as areas of sky seen through a telescope or as bird’s-eye views of our planet taken from space. Intriguingly, they could also have no reference to the known world: as the visible universe is only a tiny amount of what the universe is actually made of, imagination comes to fill the gaps.
With papier-mâché stones, Moldovan explores the tension between how things behave and what things are in and of themselves. Of different shapes and sizes, the stones have a lightness of being that can’t be guessed by their appearance.
At the core of Mihai Plătică’s atmospheric, yet analytic photographic practice is his interest in models of understanding creation, whether of matter or light. To him, the RGB color model functions as a tool for analyzing the world. By manipulating the chromatic model in groups of works such as Radiant Landscape and Chromatic Waves, he makes an attempt “to visually remedy our world”.
In other works, from the series Combining Landscape Elements, the artist juxtaposes landscape photography and chemical elements (niobium, vanadium, etc.) to highlight various similarities existing in nature that can be explained if we research the composition of the matter.
Keeping his eyes on the sky and his artmaking grounded in 3D wall objects rather than flat images, Plătică also creates pieces such as a sculptural object inspired by old sound mirrors, that acts as an invitation to listen to the universe, and a wood map of the Pleiades, with telescope lens discs standing for the brightest stars in the constellation.
Art fair details
Gaep, Booth E31
Emergent section, curated by Attilia Fattori Franchini
With the support of Romanian Cultural Institute
Public access
1 April | 11:30/15:30 – 15:30/20:00
2 April | 11:30/15:30 – 15:30/20:00
3 April | 10:00/13:30 – 13:30/17:00
Address
fieramilanocity_MiCo – Pad 3 – Gate 5 – viale Scarampo, Milano
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Featured artworks:
Sebastian Moldovan, An Unlikely Series of Fortunate Events 39, 2022, drawing ink on paper, 26.5 x 37 cm; An Unlikely Series of Fortunate Events 36, 2022, drawing ink on paper, 26.5 x 37 cm; An Unlikely Series of Fortunate Events 40, 2022, drawing ink on paper, 26.5 x 37 cm; An Unlikely Series of Fortunate Events 41, 2022, drawing ink on paper, 26.5 x 37 cm; The Story of Paperock, 2021, paper pulp, 3 pieces: 12 cm, 8 cm, 7 cm in diameter © Sebastian Moldovan
Mihai Plătică, Radiant Landscape 1, 2021, inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Metallic, 25 x 34 x 6.5 cm, edition: 2/3 + 2 AP; Inclination, 2021, inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Metallic, 25 x 34 x 6.5 cm, edition: 2/3 + 2 AP; Combining Landscape Elements n, 2021, inkjet print on Hahnemühle Photo Rag Satin, niobium 99.9%, 22.5 x 54 x 5 cm, edition: 1/3 + 2 AP; Sound Mirror, 2021, sandblasted aluminium, 52 x 52 x 5-7.5 cm; Clusters, 2021, germanium metal lens discs 99.999%, meranti wood, 24 x 32 x 4 cm, edition: 3/3 + 1 AP © Mihai Plătică
