ALEX DORICI | GALERIA FERNANDO SANTOS | 04.05.2019
The personal exhibition “Dois Quartos 2/4” originates from the challenging collaboration between Arte Laguna Prize and Galleria Fernando Santos, which has selected Alex Dorici as the winner of the Special Prize “Artist in Gallery” for the 12th Arte Laguna Prize.
The current exhibition takes its cue from an in-depth introspective question: “What is the role of the artist within a consumerist, technological and globalized society like the contemporary one?”.
ARTIST IN GALLERY PRIZE
Artist: Alex Dorici
Location: Galeria Fernando Santos, Porto – Portugal
Opening: May 4th 2019
Exhibition: May 4th – June 29th 2019
Driven by the desire to expand his visual research within the whole gallery space, Alex Dorici proposed an anthropocentric exhibition project, placing the visitor at the center of his installations.
Scotch Drawing is the name given to a set of interventions made with tape. This material is present in his research since the very beginnings and is essential to his body of works. When applied to the installation, the tape assumes the role of the trace of the brushstrokes on a pictorial surface, a modus operandi that can be grasped as a unique stylistic signature that affirmed his artworks within the art world.
Installation Rope is part of a set of site-specific works began in 2011. The material is naval rope, with variable length and thickness, depending on the space in which the installation is places. The rope is part of a reel which dialogues with the architecture of the space where the installation is placed. This subtle technique and material aim at distorting the space and the perception of the viewer, inviting him/her to enter the installation and become part of it.
Alex Dorici, of Italian and Portuguese nationality, was born in Lugano (Switzerland) in 1979, where he currently lives and works. At the beginning of 2000, Alex followed his artistic vocation joining the Accademia di Belle Arti Aldo Galli in Como and graduating in 2005 in Painting and Engraving. As a student, he won the first prize at the Concorso di studi Angelo Tenchio (Como), in the video art section, with the short-film Saudade Itamar (2003). Since 2007 Alex Dorici’s artistic production has been profoundly marked by a persistent research of the dialogue between the work of art, the surrounding environment and the public. Moreover, the artist has constantly been challenged by the street art language and made subtle interventions, using the tape in order to give a new dimension to the abandoned urban spaces. Sensitive to the frenetic consumerism and the consequent debris, Alex Dorici paid a special attention to the use of recycled materials, inviting to an ethical fruition of his installations.
Galeria Fernando Santos, now celebrating its 25th anniversary, was the first art gallery to settle in Miguel Bombarda Street, Porto, in what later became the so called Art District. Contributing to creating an unprecedented dynamic in the city, Galeria Fernando Santos has been constantly carried on its activity with the goal to promote promising young artists within the art market.
With the special prizes “Artist in Gallery”, Arte Laguna Prize aims at creating a wide and versatile network within the international art world, giving the artists the opportunity to collaborate with a large variety of galleries, museums and foundations.
Alex Dorici is on view at Galeria Fernando Santos from May 4th until June 29th 2019.
