“A Leap into the Void. Art beyond Matter” at GAMeC
From February 3, 2023, GAMeC presents A Leap into the Void. Art beyond Matter, the third and final chapter of the major exhibition project dedicated to the investigation of matter in twentieth and twenty-first-century art.
Launched in 2018 with Black Hole. Art and Materiality from Informal to Invisible, and continued in 2021 with Nothing is Lost. Art and Matter in Transformation, A Leap into the Void concludes the Trilogy of Matter exploring the theme of the dematerialization, with a transversal tale that triggers a connection between those investigations into the void, initiated by the first movements of the historical avant-garde and developed by experimental groups post-World War II, the investigations into flux undertaken in the years of early computerization, and the use of new languages and simulated realities in the post-digital era.
The exhibition, curated by Lorenzo Giusti and Domenico Quaranta, presents the works of some of the leading protagonists from the history of twentieth-century art, as well as pioneers of digital art, together with artists from more recent generations, thanks to loans from important international institutions, and from private collections.
Specifically, A Leap into the Void looks at those artists who, at different times, have investigated the dimension of the void in relation to the theme of matter—thus denying it in substance or identifying it as a mere ideal or imaginative dimension—or whose work has proved capable of reflecting epochal changes in the perception of the material dimension and in material culture itself, introduced by the emergence of the paradigms of software and computerization, as well as by the digital revolution and its social absorption.
The exhibition is divided into three sections—Void, Flow and Simulation—which frame as many ways of focusing on, representing, and expressing the principles of dematerialization, and develops an experiential path in which the numerous works on display stimulate the viewer’s perception from a visual and bodily perspective.