Preludio #1: Marcello Maloberti

Preludio is the new name of the series of original works commissioned for every edition of Arte Fiera from major Italian artists. The works emphasize the connotation of the title and are the first image to welcome and introduce visitors to the fair.
The work produced for this edition, created with the generous support of Gruppo Hera, is Marcello Maloberti’s site-specific project KOLOSSAL, placed at the Piazza Costituzione entrance.

It is a large performative installation - a precarious monument, an anti-monument: a crane on a truck outside has uprooted a Bologna road sign from its original setting and holds it suspended between earth and sky evoking the city’s history. Clumps of soil and concrete left piled around two support poles as roots denote origin. The work hangs in the air, an open door to the infinite sky, its upward quest and tension elevating an entire city.

For as long as Arte Fiera is open, the installation will be enlivened by numerous posters created for the occasion that will accompany visitors as they move around the fairgrounds and city themselves. On the back of the poster, written by hand, is the work’s title, a reference to an unfinished work by Paolo Pasolini, entitled Porno-Teo-Kolossal (1966-1975). The screenplay to this unproduced film has survived: it tells the story of the meandering travels of two characters in search of a new Messiah, whose mysterious arrival has become the subject of uncontrollable gossip. Interpreted with this allusion in mind, the poster, which will move through the city up to the fair’s entrance, is also, ideally, a sort of comet suspended between earth and sky.

Marcello Maloberti (b. Codogno, Lodi, 1966) is a visual artist living in Milan. His research, based on the most marginal aspects of urban existence, pays particular attention to the uncertainty of experience. His observation goes beyond the immediacy of daily life, with a neorealistic eye that is both alienating and dreamlike, combined with an archeological approach to the history of art. He creates performances and large-scale sound and light installations with a strong theatrical effect, both in private and public spaces, always preferring interaction with audiences. These installations are like short stories, environments to be experienced and performed, emotional temperatures to be traversed. The performing body is the community, able to create a dialog between the performance and its audience. In recent years, Maloberti has explored the combination art/life, using a wide range of visual and sound languages – photography, video, performance, installation, objects, and collage – always with vivid performative effect.
 

Performers:
Giorgia Lolli
Michele Petrosino
Ester Silverio

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