MATTHIAS SCHALLER
Tessuto urbano

From 24 March to 26 November 2023
Venice, Palazzo Mocenigo Museum – White Room

In collaboration with Sonnabend Gallery, New York City

The Civic Museums of Venice presents at the Museum Palazzo Mocenigo – White Room an installation by Matthias Schaller consisting of two independent photographic series “Tessuto Urbano” (2022) and “Lagunenwalzer” (2012). Through the 53 works on display, the german photographer synthesizes his own imagery of the contemporary city, inspired by De Barbari’s famous 16th-century “veduta”.

The series “Tessuto Urbano” portrays the seven Sestieri of Venice through a succession of seven shots obtained from the same seventeenth-century lace belonging to the Burano Museum Collection. Each photograph reproduces, according to a reduced scale reproduction, a Venetian Sestiere, guiding the viewer among the intricate finishes of the fabric that become the “calli” and “campielli” of the city. The lace, a symbol of the lagoon’s textile manufacturing past and presence, has stimulated the artist’s historical soul and is a metaphor for the city urban dimension of the city.

“Lagunenwalzer”, that goes along with the “merletto” is a selection of 46 vinyl records taken from a venetian archive of punk music. The records, in their tight succession, become the correlative of water that seeps into Venice and constitutes its peculiarity. The etched-surface vinyls outline the horizon of the view, and their provocative titles allude to the revolutionary yet latent spirit of the city.

Matthias Schaller with his eye fond of the Venetian reality, to which he already dedicated  seventh project, by using the strategy of the indirect portraiture to propose an alternative image of Venice to the more common city map. In this exhibition lace and vinyl are the figures of an immersive metaphor of Venice, reflecting on the past of the city and directly addressed to the viewer. The pictures activate our imagination without imposing the spatial delimitation to which topography forces us.

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The visit at the exhibition is included in Museo di Palazzo Mocenigo’s ticket