Sally Smart. The Artists Family
- When: May 05, 2023 - June 21, 2023
- this event is ended
- Place: Roma, PostmastersRoma
- Region: Lazio
Contemporary artArt Exhibitions in Roma
PostmastersROMA is extremely pleased to present Sally Smart’s second solo exhibition with the gallery in Rome and her sixth under the Postmasters Gallery umbrella.
The show, The Artists Family, dances with mythology, archetypes, psychology, art, theatre and the entangled relationships between the body, history and culture. Layered and entangled, these motifs come together in the multi-material sculptures and wall works.
Sally Smart is well known for her installations, performances and textile artworks. For our exhibition in Rome, Smart has created her own performance troupe in a form of bronze/textile sculptures and embroideries that inhabit the gallery space. The show encapsulates various points in the history of theatre, dance and performance, starting from the ancient Roman/Greek tragedy, 16th century Commedia Dell’Arte and the early 20th century Ballets Russe.
The embroideries on view are reconfigured, fragmented, and abstracted parts of the costumes of the Ballets Russes which were originally designed by Picasso, de Chirico, Delaunay, Goncharova, Larionov, and Matisse among others.
Smart's restructured textiles adorn the sculptures in the exhibition. Their heads, made out of bronze, are archetypal and mythological personages. Mother, Artist, Harlequin, Flora, Goat, Pulcinella make their contemporary appearance in The Artists Family.
The sculptures are a place of connecting and layering of materials and meanings. The costumes have their own significance, and here they shed their primary function and become an integral part of the sculpture’s subject, made in bronze. For example, Goat's textile is based on the Faun character’s costume designed by Léon Bakst, for the Ballets Russes The Afternoon of a Faun, which was choreographed by Vaslav Nijinsky. Flora, is a Roman goddess of flowers and spring.
The larger scaled wall works also relate to Italy and Rome in particular. The brick motifs, come from ancient Roman walls and the sets of the Ballets Russes. The diamond shapes refer to the floor mosaic in Villa Massimo in Rome along with the legacies of the Commedia dell’ Arte and the Harlequin character.
Furthermore, Italy was important in the history of the Ballets Russes with several great collaborations initiating in Rome. Picasso met his wife Olga Khokhlova, dancer for the Ballet Russe, in Rome. Sergei Diaghilev and Picasso, all worked on the ballet Parade in Rome. Pulcinella came from Picasso’s visit with Stravinsky to Pompei where they were first introduced to the Commedia Dell’Arte characters. De Chirico worked on the last ballet of Diaghilev for the Ballets Russe, Le Bal. It’s set design and costumes included broken fragments of classical ancient Roman architecture, which are integrated into Sally Smart’s practice as well.
Sally Smart (b.1960) is one of Australia's most significant contemporary artists with a practice that engages identity politics: ideas relating to the body; the home and history.
Sally Smart works across artistic media, from collage and cut-outs to screen-printing, objects, video and sound. The act of cutting and reassembling is central to her works which employ fabric elements evoking the human body, the domestic and feminine.
Smart is recognised internationally for producing stunning, large-scale cut-out assemblage installations made from felt, canvas, silk-screened and everyday fabrics that she constructs with pins. Smart is a process-oriented artist, often presenting narratives that characteristically subvert gender hierarchies through deconstruction and reconstruction of historical events and political associations with the traditional activities of women.
Smart has exhibited widely in Australia and internationally like in Fukuoka, New York, London, Rome, Sao Paulo, Shanghai, Singapore, Jakarta and Hong Kong to name a few, and her works are represented in most major galleries, museums and collections throughout Australia and in collections public and private, internationally. Smart has been the recipient of numerous appointments, awards and prizes including: Vice-Chancellors Professorial Fellow, VCA, University of Melbourne (2016-2020), Board member (Deputy Chair) National Association for the Visual Arts (NAVA) (2014-2020); Visual Arts Australia Council Grant (2018); Jury Member Adelaide Contemporary, International Architecture Competition (2018); Australia Indonesia Institute Grant and Asialink/Creative Victoria (2016); Public Art Commission, Shadow Trees, Buluk Park, Melbourne (2012); Artist-in Residence, The University of Connecticut, Storrs, USA (2012); and Trustee of the National Gallery of Victoria (2002-2008), The ANZ Travelling Fellowship (1989) and H.P Gill Medal Adelaide (1981).
Sally Smart is currently Honorary Professor Faculty of Fine Arts and Music, University of Melbourne, and was recently appointed to the Council of the National Gallery of Australia.
Smart graduated from the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne (Master of Fine Arts) 1991; Victorian College of the Arts, Melbourne, Post-graduate Diploma (Painting) 1987- 88; South Australian School of Art, Adelaide (1978-1981).
Title: Sally Smart. The Artists Family
Opening: May 05, 2023
Ending: June 21, 2023
Organization: PostmastersRoma
Place: Roma, PostmastersRoma
Address: Via Giovanni Mario Crescimbeni, 11 - 00184 Roma
More info on this website: https://www.postmastersroma.com/exhibitions/sallysmart
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