AsAbaroK

At Red Stamp Art Gallery in Amsterdam, on Friday the 20th of April 2012 at 16:00, will take place the inauguration of AsAbaroK, the solo exhibition of the vicentine artist Christian Zanotto, curated by Sonia Arata. The fifteen artworks and the seven videos on display ,specially realized for this personal show, unlock a new mythology of the feminine, translated in a modern language.

AsAbarok is the mysterious anagram chosen by the artist to bring us on a travel of exploration and knowledge of the deepest and most hidden meanders of our psyche through the magnetic feminine universe revealed by the images of his artworks and videos. A title that sounds like the echo of a spell or the magical word of a ritual : it's the synthesis of Asa and Baroque, which points to a combinition between past and modern figuration, between the asa values of photography and a passed epoch of grandious use of images. “As A BaroK”: “as a baroque man”.

Christian Zanotto' s visual code expresses an unknown language, covered by enigmas and soaked with magic, where mysterious sacred and profane female figures are molded, madonnas and virtual porn-stars configured as icons of power and luxury,hieratic goddesses of perversion and voluptuousness. They are pictures shaped by the artist using sophisticated softwares, tested in the high-definition cinema, and photographic techniques to pick out and fix details, like real human skin, fabrics, lace, gold, so as to be able then to create textures with which to cover the depicted subjects.

These virtual artworks, through a photographic exposure process, condense themselves on gleaming crystal sheets, becoming mirrors in which, next to our reflected image, beautiful, perfect and smooth entities of elsewhere appear; new figures of goddesses which perhaps upset us, calling us across the border of the frame from their eternal and omnipresent world, always changing through the passing of time.
The artist places in front of us puzzling entities with transgenic bodies,mistress women which
embody the consciousness of a dominant female role ,owners of machines
from obscure function: they influence our psyche like the images of the ancient alchemists or the Arcana of Tarot do, veiling and in the same time unveiling close and remote meanings, just as the images from dreams.

Christian Zanotto says: “ Their appearance carries with itself a revealing message, which shakes us through a shiver, an electric contact (“divine spark”, they would have said), to lead us to explore, understand and disentangle on a deeper level the dark side of our conscience, the most unknown. Here, beyond the fear, the enormous and true strength of the feminine, unquenchable and always actual, is hidden. We can make it relive in its whole splendor.”
“ …These Amazons of vice, strapped up in leather lingerie, are dressed in sadomasochistic porno-chic outfits and with seducing accessories designed with the meticulousness of a goldsmith. Boots, belts and other symbolic decorative golden tinsels that draw from sacred iconography, from mythology, from Mannerist painting and Baroque, cinema, comics and fashion. They rely on the dramatisation of gestures, on plastic poses typical of calendars or fashion magazines; they impose in order to arouse marvel in whom watches them.
His luxury Valkyries emanate a mysterious hypnotic strength. They seduce and reject at the same time. Are they dominatrices of the world? Authoritarian rulers outside time and history who materialise themselves as ready-made profanity searching for its own plastic perfection. They are the anti-Madonna, more than the anti-Christ…
refined aesthetic research, influenced by the art history of the past and nourished by our own obsession with Beauty.His images are the result of a refined intellectual game, of visual meditations on the marvellous power of art of all times to confuse reality with pretence….”

From “AsAbaroK / KorabAsA”, critic text by Jacqueline Ceresoli in the exhibition catalogue

Christian Zanotto (Marostica, Vicenza, Italy, 1972) lives and works between Amsterdam and Italy. In 2007 he has been awarded with the “Prize for Digital Art” by the jury of the “Prize for the Arts – Prize for the Culture ”, Milano, IT.
Recent exhibitions include: “Alessandria Biennial”, Fortress of Alessandria, Alessandria, IT (2008), curated by Sabrina Raffaghello; “Third Renaissance”, Palazzo Ducale, Urbino, IT (2010) and “Third Renaissance – Languages of Hybrid Sensibility”, Civic Gallery of Contemporary Art A' Caos, Norman Castle, Aci Castello, Catania, IT (2010), curated by Carmelo Strano, Grace Zanotto and Angelo Cruciani; “Asolo Biennial”, Asolo, Treviso, IT (2010), curated by A. Schirato, “God O' Clock – Horlogerie Exquise – God Is Wearing A Rolex”, Famiglia Margini Gallery, Milano, IT (2010/2011), curated by Alberto Mattia Martini; “Responses in Time”, Georgia Museum of Art, Athens, Georgia, USA (2012), curated by Lynn Boland.
Among the upcoming exhibitions: “IV Malindi Art Biennial”, Malindi, Kenya (2012/2013), curated by Achille Bonito Oliva.

Red Stamp Art Gallery was established in Amsterdam (Netherlands) in 2005. It is located in the heart of the town's historical center and based in an eighteenth century building, classified as Royal Monument. The gallery exhibits artworks by international talented artists, whose techniques range from painting to sculpture, from digital art to photography and video art. Red Stamp Art Gallery's attention is always paid to the high formal and conceptual quality of the works.

TECHNICAL BOARD

AsAbaroK
Christian Zanotto's Personal Exhibition curated by Sonia Arata
critic text by Jacqueline Ceresoli
from the 20th of April 2012 to the 26th of May 2012 Opening: Friday 20 April 2012 – 16:00 / 20:00
Address: Red Stamp Art Gallery, Rusland 22, 1012 CL Amsterdam – NL
Exhibition catalogue – Critic text by Jacqueline Ceresoli

Contacts:

Red Stamp Art Gallery
www.redstampartgallery.com
info@redstampartgallery.com
tel.: +31 0 6 46406531
+31 0 20 4208684
+39 347 1917003

Christian Zanotto
www.christianzanotto.com

Press Office Italy:
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flavia.lanza.press@gmail.com
tel.: +39 340 9245760

Press Office – The Netherlands:
Christian Pazzaglia
press@redstampartgallery.com
Tel.: +31 06 42275355