In Bologna, the solo exhibition of British artist Helen Dowling between video and neon

From May 7 to June 6, 2021 Villa delle Rose in Bologna will host the exhibition Something for the Ivory by Helen Dowling (Guernsey, 1982), curated by Giulia Pezzoli. This is the British artist’s first solo exhibition in an Italian museum institution and is organized as part of the 2020/2021 edition of the ROSE Residency Program.

As part of the program of ART CITY Bologna, which this year takes place with a renewed formula as part of Bologna Estate, under the artistic direction of Lorenzo Balbi and the coördination of the Bologna Musei institution, the exhibition project is set up specifically for the splendid 18th-century residence. The site-specific exhibition is the final outcome of the educational and creative journey the artist undertook during her seven-week stay in Bologna between October and November 2020 as Sandra Natali Artist Residency.

Helen Dowling’s multidisciplinary practice analyzes the structures of digital and video language. In her work, archival materials and personally shot footage are combined to create works with an intimate, enveloping effect, in which the line between reality and imagination blurs. In the editing process, color, movement, rhythm and sound interact mixing different levels of meaning and creating new associations of images and new potential narrative developments. In the exhibition project, the artist has developed a reflection based on the functional analysis of digital content and the scientific observation and representation of the human body.

Something for the Ivory is inspired by the exploration of the world of purpose made stock footage; the research project was initiated in 2017 with the video work of the same name and of which the exhibition is the second chapter, and reflects on the conceptual implications behind the production and use of stock images and videos, created and available on online platforms to be freely purchased and used for a wide variety of content. These commercial products are considered by the artist as multi-functional interpretations of the image they represent, as potential incipits of infinite narratives.

During the residency in Bologna, the artist’s research focused on the relationship between bodies and production dynamics, relating the process of creating ’specially made stock films’ to the activity of Anna Morandi Manzolini (1714 - 1774), a well-known sculptor and a very rare case of female anatomist, whose original waxwork collection Dowling was able to observe on display at the Palazzo Poggi Museum. In their process of restitution of the real, both the digital stock image and the product of scientific observation are united not only by a generative process of analysis, abstraction and inclusion, but also by a similar ground of landing, which allows them to become sites of overlapping and thus of ever-changing resignification.

On the main floor of Villa delle Rose, the exhibition consists of five immersive installations, including the new video production Xylophone conceived and realized during the period of his residency in Bologna, and which stands in dialogue with the previous video work Holden (2017). The digital images of these two videos, often dark and not easily decipherable, dialogue with the minimal lighting of the works installed in the other three rooms of the Villa, immersing the visitor in dramatic and enveloping atmospheres, such as that of the pink neon of alright mother, you win or ironic and floating like those of the prints of Hey buddy or the textiles of Gone away.

The exhibition takes the audience on a journey of emotional exploration, of lost and found narratives woven through the infinite evocative potential of light and sound. Modified, layered, interpolated, cut, edited and set in motion Helen Dowling’s images belong to the contemporary and play with the very concepts of representation and creation.

The exhibition Something for the Ivory is realized with the organizational support of Absolut Events & Communication.

For more info: www.mambo-bologna.org/villadellerose/

Admission is free with reservations required by the day before the visit at https://www.midaticket.it/eventi/mambo-museo-darte-moderna-di-bologna.

Hours: Saturday and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Extra hours are scheduled for ART CITY Bologna: Friday, Saturday, May 8 and Sunday, May 9 from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Image: Helen Dowling, alright mother, you win, Installation view of the exhibition Helen Dowling. Something for the Ivory at Villa delle Rose (2020; neon, 8 x 33 cm). Photo Roberto Serra. Courtesy Istituzione Bologna Musei.

In Bologna, the solo exhibition of British artist Helen Dowling between video and neon

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