Nico Vascellari “1/2”

The National Exemplar

This event has ended.

A half is two equal or corresponding separate parts.

We could be split in half: Outside (eyes, ears, legs, arms, buttocks…) and Inside (lungs, testicles…). Almost perfection.

Two symmetrical halves makes something stronger, a nucleus, a whole, a family.

Connecting duality and opposites drives my work. Interiors and exteriors, darkness and light.
The truth in contradiction.

Then I had twin sons. They are identical. Divided.

And now after having casted three parts of me (face/arm/leg), I’m writing this at the side of my mother in the hospital lying in bed unable to move half of her face, her right hand, and her right leg.

“…questo è il bene dell’essere dimezzato: il capire d’ogni persona e cosa al mondo la pena che ognuno e ognuna ha per la propria incompletezza.”
Italo Calvino, Il Visconte Dimezzato.

“… this is the good of being halved: the understanding of every person and thing in the world the punishment that each and every one has for his own incompleteness.”
Italo Calvino, The Cloven Viscount.

NICO VASCELLARI WAS BORN IN 1976 IN VITTORIO VENETO, ITALY

Among his most significant solo exhibitions: MAXXI | Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome (2018); Palais De Tokyo, Paris (2017); Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2016); Accademia di Francia - Villa Medici, Rome (2016); Estorick Collection, London (2016); National Gallery of Arts, Tirana (2015); Museion, Bolzano (2010); Museo MAN, Nuoro (2007); Skuc, Lubljana (2006); Viafarini, Milan (2006). He has also participated in the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); Manifesta 7 (2008); 15th Quadriennale in Rome (2008); 12th Architecture Biennale in Venice (2010).

His work has been exhibited in prestigious Institutions such as: Museo del Novecento, Milan; Fondation Beyeler Basel; Riga Art Space, Riga; La Maison Rouge, Paris; MAK, Wien; Kunsthaus, Graz; SongEun Art Space, Seoul; ZKM, Karlsruhe; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Espace de l’Art Concrete, Mouans-Sartoux; Palazzo Reale, Milan; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; CSW, Warsaw; PinchukArtCentre, Kiev; Le Magasin, Grenoble; Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge; EACC, Castelló; MART, Rovereto; Museo Pecci, Prato; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; MAMBO, Bologna.

His work is in numerous public collections including: Deutsche Bank, Milan; Macro - Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Roma, Rome; MAXXI | Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo Rome; Museion, Bolzano; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; MMUSAC - Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Leon.