beyond Exhibition by Louise Manzon Advantage Première Art Fund beyond presents Louise Manzon’s exhibition Beyond, held in New The project York City at Gallery 61 at the New York Institute of Technology (NYIT). In the exhibition, the artist expands on one of her most creative themes: the archetypes of Greek mythology. Manzon’s work explores various aspects of these classic symbols, including the female figure and its role as the watchful guardian of life’s secrets, sea creatures, the vitality of natural environments, and the perils that threaten those creatures and the hope for their preservation.

Curator: Jennifer Mitchell-Nevin

Gallery 61 New York Institute of Technology 16 West 61st Street 11th floor New York

From April 12th to June 3rd 2016 Introduction NYIT and the School of Architecture Her personal exhibitions in 2015 and Design, in conjunction with included Rust, at the Fondazione Advantage Premiere Art Fund, in Cini in Venice, Italy and Personal New York and Milan, are pleased Structures-Crossing Borders, to host the artist Louise Manzon hosted by the European Cultural and introduce her unique, artistic Centre at the Palazzo Mora in body of work to the community. conjunction with the 2015 Venice Biennale. In 2015 she was invited Message in the Bubble, Rust, to exhibit her work, Dialogus as a Personal Structures-Crossing part of the special program Death Borders, Dialogus, and now, in Venice at the Sixth Moscow Beyond identify Manzon’s Biennale of Contemporary Art. exhibitions and allude to all of the Beyond, the exhibition NYIT essential attributes which is hosting, is her first major show characterize her art. In 2014 she in North America. created a site installation at the historic Villa Necchi Campiglio, I first met Manzon, at a special in Milan, Italy. The exhibition event in Monaco. Those of us Message in the Bubble, highlighted gathered all had a common goal: her incredible virtuosity with form to celebrate mutual acquaintances. and theme through her highly As the festivities were coming to original and magically created an end, she came forward with a environment for ceramic sea translucent-like box. With creatures ‘swimming’ above the out-stretched arms, she handed pool in the Villa’s formal gardens. the box over to the guests of honor. The box was opened and the female figure that emerged was so exquisite and beautiful that I had to catch my breath. It was the beauty of it, not only its fineness and figural quality, but also its abstractedness that caught me off guard and alerted me to take close notice. The female figure was created from clay sediment, and then transformed into glazed ceramic with a most confident, textured color palette; it was the work of an artist in command of her media. Proto Nereid Glazed ceramic, cement, natural pigment h. 51 cm / h. 20 1/8 in.

Speio Nereid Glazed ceramic, metal mesh, natural pigment h. 58 cm h. 23 in. The renowned architect John What I came to realize about her Galatea Hejduk, former dean of The Cooper themes, the archetypes of Greek Nereid Ceramic, cement, Union’s School of Architecture, mythology; the female figure; natural pigment told me that one always knows aquatic creatures; and her h. 58 cm/ 22 3/4 in. when they are in the presence of materials of choice is that they all true works of art and creation, belong to or are an assemblage «because without control or of the four elements: earth, water, thought, you gasp.» I gasped when air and, of course, fire--the kiln of I saw Manzon’s work, and I knew intense heat that dazzles. I needed to know more about As an architect and educator Manzon and her art. with a highly developed visual Manzon was born in Brazil, and sensibility, and an in-depth spent her formative years in the knowledge of architecture and art United States and Europe. history, I am often called upon as She received her master’s degree an “expert witness” to evaluate in Industrial Design from Pratt formal compositions. This explains, Institute. Her father was the in part, my intensity when renowned photographer and film considering Manzon’s art. Whether maker, Jean Manzon (1915-1990). one is aware of her themes or not, Manzon’s exposure to her father’s her compositional sense and her art, most certainly, played a part ability to transform the earth into in the refinement of eye, hand and exquisite three-dimensional mind that her artistic creations ceramic figurations is phenomenal. disclose. Her sensibility goes The aquatic creatures are full, fluid beyond what one sees before them. and slippery. They pulse with life. It demonstrates an inner passion They glisten as if wet. and commitment to the natural environment from whence her subjects derive, and remind us to preserve and sustain our precious environment. Bengala Indian Ocean Glazed ceramic Her female figures, which dominate Special thanks goes to Jennifer Dynamene the exhibition space, have robes Mitchell-Nevin, NYIT School of Nereid Glazed ceramic, metal that seem to flow and billow in the Architecture and Design’s events mesh, natural pigment wind. Her subjects, especially the co-ordinator and curator for h. 74 cm/ 29 1/8 in. sea creatures, are formally sensual Gallery 61, and Nancy Donner, in composition; the fish, undulate Vice President of Communications and move, and the females swirl and Marketing. and twist upwards with diagonal On the other side of the Atlantic, movement, as if freeing themselves I must thank Francesco Confuorti, from their flowing garments. Her founder of Advantage Premiere Art mixture of materials; mesh, stucco Fund and President of Advantage and cement mixed with pigments, Financial, for his generosity to both along with glazes highlighted NYIT’s School of Architecture and with paint, result in a tactile, Design and Beyond, which is an sumptuousness of color that dazzle exhibition of work that exemplifies and surprise. Indeed, she possesses his commitment to environmental an eye for both beauty and form sustainability. We would like of the highest order. to thank Rosy Iannone for her It is my honor to host Manzon, patience and help with this project. her art, her artistic message, and Finally, I would like to thank the her message of concern. NYIT Board of Trustees and NYIT President Edward Guiliano, Ph.D., for creating NYIT’s extraordinary and interdisciplinary milieu that makes all this possible.

Thank you,

Judith DiMaio, FAIA Dean, School of Architecture and Design, NYIT April 2016 Doto I have always looked at sculptors But music is immaterial, while Nereid Presentation with envy because there are not sculpture is the art form that is the Ceramic, cement, natural pigment very many of them and I would most material, the most concrete. h. 67 cm/ 26 1/2 in. have wanted their same talent! Sculptures are placed in parks, squares, gardens, churches, Why? Because sculpture is an museums, palaces, confident of extremely physical art in terms living through the centuries and of the artist who creates it, ravages of time, albeit perhaps the materials that are usually used, with some event as occurs when a and for the end result. tyrant is killed or when sculptures There is a vitality and a movement suffer damage like the Samothrace in sculpture that in a certain sense now in the Louvre. She has lost can also be found in music. her head, but not her wings. So, gazing at some of the marine forms, some of the fish, they make me think of Balla’s speed. It occurs to me that Louise Manzon’s work is a pearl that belongs to the long string of pearls that is sculpture. A Brazilian artist, who has experienced North America and the works of Louise Nevelson, who has known Paris and the works of Camille Claudel and Rodin, who looked upon the works of Brancusi and Moore, has been able to find her own materials and turn them into voluptuous, restless forms that seem to want to flee, to break through, to look for the light. But the sculptures can not escape Moluche because they are immobile, and Pacific Ocean Glazed ceramic therefore it is fascinating that the artist knows how to give them a Alboran sense, the illusion of movement, by Mediterranean Sea using forms she models in Glazed ceramic materials that are sometimes rough and difficult to shape. I enjoy imagining an initial sketch, and then the transition to the transformation of the material in its form. Louise Manzon has her recognizable cipher that is carried along with faded memory, the memory of those who came before her. Calder worked with wire and colorful metal plates inspired by the works of Mondrian and he was able to reproduce the world of the circus that so fascinated him. Giacometti invented those slender a strong desire to live, to breathe bodies that were inspired by the fresh air of the early morning primitive totems. That same and feel happiness of what is newly primitive art was to inspire found, a fabulous unknown that sculptors like Brancusi and her fish look at with eyes wide painters like Picasso – who also open. Her forms to some seem tried his hand at sculpture. Baroque; to me they call to mind futurists such as Balla or Medardo Louise Manzon is not intimidated Rosso. But the colors produced by her illustrious predecessors by the artist bring us back to an because she has her own poetic older, submerged world. They are world and creates its forms in the colors of the vases found on the green, red, blue, fish or in the seabed or the chains and anchors depiction of a young blonde girl of the galleons sunk by pirates. with an angelic and ambiguous face, absent and dreamy, with I do not see compromise in her her long neck and blue robe. work, decorative elements or As I looked at this sculpture, I do elements that link to anything not know why the Madonna del too precise. Through the clay, Parto by Piero della Francesca everything finds its own energy, its came to mind. own place, its own form. Louise Manzon’s sculptures, There is no perfection without modeled in clay, seem to come commitment and Louise Manzon’s from the depths of the sea after women-Nereids, with their gaze having fought through the seaweed turned upward, know this well in and the reefs, her woman-Nereid their attempt to go beyond moral figures are billowing and alive, conventions and stereotypes that tenuous. Hailing from Brazil, remain attached to them like the her many travels have given her labels that can be glimpsed on one of the flowing robes. The artist goes beyond the repetition of familiar stories, the intergenerational transmission of secrets and burdens, obligations and apparitions of past lives that remain trapped in the fibers of the clothes worn by these beautiful women. Michelangelo hits all the marks: the strength of Moses, the sweetness and delicacy of the Pietà, the beauty and youth of David, and the incompleteness of the Rondanini Pietà.

Algaea One of the Three Gratiae Ceramic, stucco, metal mesh, natural pigment h. 235 cm/ 98 1/4 in. Louise Manzon has certainly loo- Louise Manzon wants simply to be ked at Michelangelo and especially a sculptor and lose herself in the the works of Bernini while walking dreamy, mysterious world of her through the streets of Rome and forms that are neither abstract nor pausing to gaze on his fountains. figurative. They are impressive, Water, fish, mythological figures. strong, unique and eye-catching But Louise Manzon is just herself; because they are immobile but she has found her forms, her light, moving. her poetic world, her message to This phenomenon of immobility in today’s world, which is at times motion gives the artist the role of mysterious and at times clear. knowing how to tell or to explain Beauty always accompanies her nature and life in the age in which forms and perhaps Louise wants she lives and she has witnessed. to say that the world is being And so the contemporary and destroyed and self-destructs; we the classical blend together in are surrounded by the noise of the centuries and we can see weapons, and tension of terrorism, the Discobolus of Myron or the but she sculpts her fish with sen- equestrian statue of Marcus sual shapes, articulated with the Aurelius, through a long string most beautiful colors. Matisse did of pearls, arrive at the sculptures the same thing during the First of Louise Manzon. World War in his tenacity for painting beakers containing gold fish. Or as did Morandi who painted vases and bottles under the drone of trumpet calls and the rhetoric of the totalitarian regimes. Alain Elkann Writer December 2015

Андаманские Острова (Индийский океан) Эмалированная керамика см 24x12x18в

Andamane (Indian Ocean) Glazed ceramic cm 24x12x18h Tasmania The Advantage Première Art Fund is Advantage Première Art Fund (Pacific Ocean) an independent fund dedicated to has adopted a series of ethical Glazed ceramic Advantage Première cm 62x33x27h collectable assets , primarily principles when choosing its choice focused on 20th century and works, prioritizing decision criteria contemporary art and the that are most consistent with the identification of emerging and Advantage Financial strategy. innovative sectors. More specifically, the interest in Louise Manzon’s work is generated by the presence of certain details that Advantage Première regards as particularly significant: a focus on environmental sustainability (in May 2013 Advantage Financial, with the endorsement of the President of the Italian Republic and under the aegis of the Ministry for the Environment, produced the first of three annual Advantage Financial Ecological Footprint reports), a focus on gender issues (paying attention to female artistic production), a focus on interculturality (following the work of artists that have been brought up and move between different cultures, expressing a common language and the coexistence of intellectual and civil values), and a focus on the use of materials and artistic techniques that are environmentally-friendly and respectful of the most eminent traditions.

Tasmania Pacific Ocean Glazed ceramic Melite Beyond Louise Manzon’s work has always Nereid been mindful of the female Ceramic, cement, natural pigment condition, of procreation, of the h. 66 cm/ 26 in. vitality of natural environments, the perils that threaten the sea creatures and the hope for their preservation and restoring them to more suitable and balanced conditions.

The New York exhibition expands on several of the creative themes most dear to the artist: the archetypes of Greco-Roman mythology – the cradle of Western civilization and modern sculpture traditions – time and its imperceptible flow, female figures and their role as the watchful and maternal guardians of life’s secrets, aquatic creatures and the redemptive importance of the quality of the waters in which they live.

The three large, stately sculptures are inspired by the Three Gratiae of Greco-Roman mythology, heiresses to the Greek Charites (Χάριτες in ancient Greek). From their origins, these goddesses were linked to the cult of Nature, to plants and the joy of life, capable of imbuing the hearts of divine and mortal creatures with the contagious joy of Nature. In traditional mythology, these The artist reveals that in order to figures are Aglaea, who represents convey splendor, joy and prosperity, Adornment or Splendor, women must constantly go beyond Euphrosyne, who symbolizes Joy the repetition of familiar stories, and happiness, and Thalia, who the intergenerational transmission embodies Plenty or Prosperity. of secrets and specters, ancestors who do not want to depart, and Their relationship with today’s past lives that remain trapped world is represented by the fact within the fibers of the clothes that there is no joy without sorrow, worn by these beautiful goddesses. no perfection without dedication. Louise Manzon’s three Graces; The eight princesses that are their heads carried high on reflected in the waters and the swan-like necks, their gaze fixed fish swimming near to them, are upwards toward the sky, know inspired by the Nereids (Νηρείδες this all too well in their attempt or Νηρηίδες); sea nymphs, to overcome and defeat moral the daughters of Nereus and the conventions and stereotypes. Oceanid, Doris, who in Greek This determination to overcome mythology were considered to be limits is reflected in the intention immortal, benevolent creatures, to cast off the prejudices protectors of sea creatures and of family members, friends, and kindly guides to sailors. acquaintances. Their names are Actaea, Cymothoe, Dynamene, Doto, Galatea, Melite, Proto and Speio. They were part of the court of Poseidon, and were depicted as young maidens who, along with the Tritons, accompanied the Sea God. These maidens guarded the abyss, the realm of the salty deep, populated by multitudes of colorful and extraordinary creatures.

Chukchi Artic Ocean Glazed ceramic and metal patina The images of the Nereids, divine Louise Manzon’s fish are molded figures and sculptural representa- as if the primordial power of the tions, ancient and contemporary, sea had been energized by the are deliberately placed out of time. terracotta, the material of creation. The different dimensions of the The forms bring to mind buoyant figures, whether natural or redu- primeval beings, the forms of ced, simultaneously express a sense aquatic life emerging from the of regal strength, pride and liberty, depths of the abysses. in an attempt to overcome the limitations of their destiny. The timeless elegance of the forms converge harmoniously towards the It is intentional that the artist’s opening of the mouths, bringing preferred structural technique joy to a world that has lived and always explores two dimensions: that lives with us, with our myths the obvious contrast between the and our stories. Ancient figures, magnificent surface smoothness but still relevant today, that remind of the dresses, so dazzling and us of the importance of protecting distinguished, and the primordial the environment and the traces of the clay in other fundamental relationship between structural details, left in view, humanity, nature, and culture. rough and rudimentary.

With their primeval shapes, the school of fish represents the world dominated and cared for by the Nereids; aquatic life, the force of the species threatened by pollution and negligence, factors that out of water undermine the vitality that the artist accentuates in the vivid colors and the darting shapes.

Euphrosyne One of the Three Gratiae Ceramic, metal mesh, paper, stucco, natural pigment h. 180 cm/ 71 in. Laptev Arctic Ocean Glazed ceramic The artist Louise Manzon was born in San After receiving her Master’s Degree Paolo, Brazil, in 1961, where she in Industrial Design, she worked grew up in a cosmopolitan family. as a designer at the advertising agency Young & Rubicam in New Her formative years were spent in York City. South America, Europe and the United States. In 1992 she opened her own visual design studio, generating several In 1984 she received her Bachelor’s projects between the United States degree in Industrial Design from and Europe. the Armando Alvares Penteado Foundation in San Paolo, and after In 2004 she decided to dedicate two years collaborating with an herself entirely to sculpture. She internationalarchitectural firm, attended the Art Students League she decided to continue her studies and the National Academy School at the Pratt Institute in New York, of Fine Arts in New York City. where she experimented with Her sculptures have been exhibited different expressive languages and in Switzerland, the United States artistic styles. and in Italy.

Actaea Nereid Ceramic, cement, natural pigment h. 66 cm/ 26 in. Group 2010 Cymothoe Galleria Arte Moda, Milan, Italy Nereid Exhibitions Glazed ceramic, 2012 metal mesh, natural pigment Auditorium laVerdi, Milan, Italy h. 57 cm/ 22 1/2 in.

Exhibitions 2014 Message in the Bubble, Villa Necchi Campiglio, Milan, Italy 2015 Rust, Fondazione Cini, Venice, Italy 2015 Personal Structures- Crossing Borders in the context of La Biennale di Venezia, hosted by The European Cultural Centre, Palazzo Mora, Venice Italy 2016 Beyond, New York Institute of Technology NYIT Gallery 61 16 West 61st Street, New York nyit.edu/gallery61 h. 200cm/78 paper, stucco,lime Ceramic, metalmesh, One oftheThreeGratiae Thalia On thecover: Glazed ceramic Pacific Ocean Coralli 3/4 in.

Graphic design Printing Photo Maurizio Milani Grafiche Mariano Pietro Savorelli [email protected] www.advantageart.net