Rä di Martino: The Day He Swims thru Marrakech

We are pleased to announce an exhibition of sculptures and photographs by Rä di Martino. Cinema as sculpture is a historically complex theme that has emerged as a central focus in the research of this artist in recent years.

For her first solo show in Milan, she delves into the fertile territory shared by these two media – which are only apparently separated by a series of oppositions (stillness/movement, material/immaterial, second/third dimension…). But the stakes are raised by the fact that the artist goes deeper, along the fine line between backstage and film footage, raw material and its editing, protagonist and body double, reality and fiction, original and cover. The exhibition explores the relationship between the sculptural object and the image in motion, through a sequence of photographs and hybrid objects (stands from film sets that support natural elements, with stage lighting). Not just cinema, not just sculpture, the selected set of works springs from the same narrative source, namely "The Stand-In" (slated for release in September 2017), the first feature-length film by Rä di Martino. The film is freely based on the feature film "The Swimmer" from 1964, starring Burt Lancaster. 

Di Martino takes her cue from both the story and the film to capture the suspended atmospheres of this famous surreal tale, in which a middle-aged man swims from pool to pool to cross the city to return home, re-living his life through a metaphorical voyage. In the re-enactment of the film di Martino chooses to set her version of the story in an equally metaphysical Marrakech, a contradictory city, ancient and modern at the same time, true and false, and in any case the reflection of a bourgeoisie in search of new motivations.