stacks

MICHELANGELO CONTINI STACKS AND OTHER PAINTINGS

RECENT WORKS BETWEEN 2009, 2010

Stack V, the whole bit, 2010oil on canvas170 x 200 cm

Stack VIII, this shot calls for a wood, not an iron, 2010oil on canvas200 x 140 cm

Stack VII, curtain shoe and small pieces, 2010oil on canvas160 x 190 cm

Stack VI, knee, 2010oil on canvas140 x 110 cm

Stack III, dog bones, 2010oil on canvas140 x 110 cm

Stack IV, warm-blooded animal, 2010oil on canvas200 x 140 cm

Wood, 2010oil on canvas130 x 100 cm

The goat book 2009oil on canvas90 x 110 cm

Landscape, 2009oil on canvas160 x 200 cm

Wood, 2009oil on canvas140 x 110 cm

Neighbours teach how to love, 2010oil on canvas160 x 200

No less a person than the emperor, 2009oil on canvas140 x 110cm

Stack II, at a snail`s pace, 2009oil on canvas120 x 170 cm

Face, 2009oil on canvas60 x 40 cm

Pigs, 2009oil on canvas130 x 170 cm

The room of Wladimir K., 2009oil on canvas90 x 120 cm

Landscape, 2009oil on canvas50 x 50 cm

Im interested in showing the specific moment when a body, a presence that belongs to a certain space,

becomes aware of an outside eye looking towards it. When its obliged to share his own nudity.

Im interested in the tension and resistance that moment creates. The lack of words and the paralysis

that ensues. I think it happens with living beings, places and with some kind of objects .

I want to paint fear and sweetness that can be framed in an image. Bodies, places, objects. The sweetness

of their loneliness and the threat of their immobility.

The subjects are chosen nearly casually, from photographs, scraps or notes, and it’s their possibility to

be alone, to be taken out from the rest that fascinates me. Once the subject is chosen, the painting is

build by progressively removing any of those that I recognize as tricks of an image, such as perspective,

regular or obvious shading, depth.

What has to resist in the painting has to belong to the same flesh, the same matter. Subject and

background have to exist on the same level. In a Way it’s like the research towards flattening that

obviously goes against sensation. I feel capable to call it a research of humanity.

I’m touched by those immobile places that look like cloths that have been used and simply left. When I

paint a landscape, a bush, I’m not interested in showing off nature, but it’s their degree of humanity

that keeps on fascinating me, because I somehow smell the presence of human being, that has gone

past carrying beauty and misery.

W?, 2005oil on canvas70 x 50 cm

SOME PREVIOUS WORKS

One of two tweens, 2005oil on canvas40 x 30 cm

Ghost trio,crack I, 2004oil on canvas50 x 50 cm

Ghost trio, crack III,crutch and shoe, 2005oil on canvas120 x 90 cm

Faccia, anche piede e ancora azzurro, 2005oil on canvas90 x 120 cm

Calce, 2004oil on canvas80 x 90 cm

Landscape, 2008oil on paper40 x 30 cm

Landscape, 2010oil on paper30 x 40 cm

Michelangelo Contini

Born 1976 in Milano, Italy, lives and works in Berlin, Germany

Education2000 Degree at the University for Music and Art (DAMS), Bologna, Italy

Exhibitions2010 Stacks, II // I PROJECT SPACE, Berlin, Germany (solo exhibition) Stacks-preview, DAS BÜRO, Berlin, Germany (solo exhibition) Tropical office hours, DAS BÜRO, Berlin, Germany Alle auf eins, group show, TEMPORARY KUNSTRAUM, Berlin, Germany

2009 Awry, II // I PROJECT SPACE, Berlin, Germany

2005 Faccia, anche piede e ancora azzurro, FONDATIONE VILLA POMINI, Castellanza (Varese), Italy (solo exhibition)

2004 Sechs maler aus Berlin, BERLINER KUNST PROJECT, Berlin Ghost trio, LYCHENERSTR.52, Berlin, Germany

2003 Vor/Nach bilber, DER BLAUER SALON, Berlin, Germany

2002 Without dog, DEPOSITO BULK, Milano, Italy

2001 Galleria le giraffe, LINK PROJECT, Bologna, Italy

2000 Faccia, SESTO SENSO, Bologna, Italy (solo exhibition)

Publications2005 “Michelangelo Contini, faccia, anche piede e ancora azzurro”, FONDAZIONE VILLA POMINI Castellanza, Texts by Ettore Ceriani e Gloria Pasetto

CONTACTSMichelangelo ContiniHobrecht str. 712043 BerlinGermany

[email protected]: 0049(0)178 5633526