Rome, matter and textiles at Marco Cingolani's first solo show at Fondazione Menna

The Filiberto and Bianca Menna Foundation in Rome in collaboration with Lavatoio Contumaciale and Tomav Experience announces Keeping Track of a Missing Body in Reconstructing the Signs of an Absence, the new solo exhibition by Marco Cingolani (Como, 1961), curated by Antonello Tolve to be held in Rome at the Foundation’s headquarters from April 6 to May 10, 2024. In the research that Marco Cingolani has been conducting for more than a decade to create devices in which matter intersects and combines indivisibly with incorporeal fabrics, we find a vigorous examination between the cracks of absence, understood as a visual gravity that possesses a particular density, its own internal structure, a specific plasticity. With Keeping Track of a Missing Body in Reconstructing the Signs of an Absence, alongside a new series of works from the Persistent Forms of Cohesion series whose further step, compared to the previous compositions, is to propose an idea of the whole where the missing part is determined by the shadow of theobject that creates ideal continuity between two bodies, Cingolani proposes for the spaces of the Foundation a state of contextual tension that seems to expand in the environment to focus the work area on a specific point, where the symbolic attraction between two magnets that meet is perceived, metaphorically creating the vertigo of endless waiting. Made of Calacatta Borghini or Carrara marble and with steel inserts, the three columns of the recent cycle Tenendosi a distanza (2024) are devices that transform the solemnity, rigidity and coldness typical of columns into a rarefied dimension that welcomes light, generating subtle and evanescent thresholds, sharp suspensions and reflections on the power of thought.

The cycle Shadow Bodies (2023-2024) consists of ten graphic works printed on glossy paper, constituting an unpublished artist’s book, calling to mind Bruno Munari ’s work Nella nebbia di Milano (1968). These works represent an ongoing attempt to trace and preserve the presence of a now-deceased work through the projection of its shadow. Interpreted as missing bodies, obfuscations or projections that preserve the trace of something, these works reflect on absence and light memories. The ten Shadow Bodies are kept in ivory cases and appear suspended, as if indicating a threshold to be crossed mentally. Flipping through the book, words gradually emerge, composing the phrase keep track of a missing body in reconstructing the signs of an absence.

Notes on the artist

Marco Cingolani, born in Como in 1961, after completing his art studies at the Macerata Art Institute, enrolled in the School of Sculpture at the Macerata Academy of Fine Arts in 2004. After obtaining his first and second level diplomas, both with the highest marks and praise of the commission, he worked as a subject tutor with artist Franko B, holder of the Chair of Sculpture at the same Academy of Fine Arts. In 2011, he attended T.A.M. Di Pietrarubbia, the School of Advanced Training in the Artistic Treatment of Metals directed by Arnaldo Pomodoro. He carried out seminar activities as a lecturer at the Academy of Fine Arts of Macerata, where from 2012 to 2016 he held the position of laboratory technical coadjutor at the Schools of Sculpture and Graphic Art. Between 2017 and 2018 he taught plastic disciplines at the G. Canta- lamessa High School of Art in Macerata. In 2018 he was selected as the winner of the Pannaggi Prize - new generation. Since 2019 he has been teaching metal design at Liceo Artistico G. Cantalamessa in Macerata. In 2022 selected as winner sculpture section of the Marche Prize.

Rome, matter and textiles at Marco Cingolani's first solo show at Fondazione Menna

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