Installation view


For the first time in Italy, the Suzy Shammah gallery presents a double show featuring Martin Klimas, a German photographer, and Sirous Namazi, a Swedish artist of Iranian origin. Taking independent paths, these two young artists both subjectively interpret the theme of fragility, which they investigate starting with the material event of shattering an object. The exhibit's title, Gravity, recalls the terrestrial attraction that the artists substantially challenge during the creative process of these works.

Martin Klimas uses graphic shots to freeze the precise moment in which a delicate porcelain figure is broken apart, irremediably smashed into pieces, offering itself in one last moment to the viewer's eye. Refined miniatures that recall the Meissen tradition seem to depict brief dances, while oriental figures in enameled terracotta engage in imaginary kung-fu battles. The gaze is attracted by the modification of volumes, which gives the objects an ephemeral vitality, and allows us to appreciate their esthetic and formal qualities. Using a traditional photographic technique, and without employing any post-production effects, Martin Klimas's photographs manage to provoke the jolt one feels when something slips from his grasp. 

Sirous Namazi presents some works belonging to the cycle Patterns of Failure, a series of sculptures consisting of porcelain furnishings which the artist breaks without any control in form, and then re-assembles in the search for a possible balance among the fragments. From this process come incongruous towers of surprising grace and precariousness, whose chromatic variations provide a syncopated rhythm. In Sirous Namazi's work the search for identity, which comes from his experience as an immigrant, is the recurring theme with which he addresses elements of daily living using his unique and unusual perspective. Transformed, these objects provoke the viewer to reflect upon the emotional and symbolic meanings they envelop in our own existence. The artist takes on a multitude of techniques, from sculpture to video, from painting to installation, and often his works develop from an innovative combination of these methods.

Sirous Namazi, Pattern of Failure (l), 2004, porcelain, glue, h. 260 cm