MARCO LANDO

 “Fragmentation”

July 5th – July 30th, 2022
Opening Reception: Thursday, July 7th, 6–8PM
Artist Talk: Saturday, July 16, 4–6 PM

*Face Masks are Required

 

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE                                                                                      Please List

MARCO LANDO

“Fragmentation”

July 5th – July 30th, 2022

Opening reception: Thursday July 7, 6 - 8 PM
Artist Talk: Saturday, July 16, 4–6 PM

*Face Masks are Required

Chelsea: Viridian Artists Inc. is pleased to present an exhibition of post-apocalyptic imagery by the photographer Marco Lando entitled “Fragmentation”. The show opens July 5^thand continues through July 30^th, 2022. You are invited to meet the artist and celebrate the opening of this exhibit on Thursday, July 7th, 6 - 8 PM & on Saturday, July 9^th, 4 - 6 PM.

Marco Lando’s work is influenced by his New York theatre background. Combining existential plot lines, dramatic lighting, and surrealist stage design, the otherworldly mise-en-scenes he creates operate on a visceral, symbolic level. Always shot in black-and-white, and manipulated digitally, his imagery explores the human psyche, eschewing the rational and moral world in favor of the unconscious and instinctual. The absence of color lends a forensic quality to the uncanny nature of his subject matter and avoids pushing it into the realm of the sensational.

Hermetic figures occupy dark and moody landscapes that recall the mystical and esoteric realms of Symbolists like Odilon Redon, William Blake, and Arnold Bocklin, along with their surrealist offspring — photographers Raoul Ubac, Man Ray, and Hans Bellmer --- who manipulated the photographic medium for similar affect

The artist is presenting two projects in this exhibit which have main characteristics in common. Each have the theme of fragmentation juxtaposed with the whole: in one, there are portions of cities that dissolve and detach themselves from the earth, in the other, we have mosaic tiles crumble and then eventually merge into new forms.  Both evoke the loss of symbolic order, and in both projects we find the theme of the starry sky which gives to the show a formal and symbolic coherence.

The post-apocalyptic realm of Alchemy (2016-ongoing) presents deranged aerial scenes of the heavens where architectural images, ancient and new, float amid stormy skies and portentous moons. These stark black-and-white worlds evoke the loss of symbolic order. From twinkling skyscrapers to cold slabs of stone, these monuments to human progress are mysteriously set adrift in a cold, godless universe. Their fragmented, abstracted, and tilting forms seem to fall and rise in response to gravitational forces beyond their control. Like futuristic landscapes the nature they conjure is a fearsome one presided over by the power of the full moon. Moving through space, unmoored by gravity and purpose, they are sci-fi ruins from a defunct planet long ago forgotten.

In “Specter of Belief”, a project  sponsored by the municipal government of Ravenna that was conceived by the artist for the city, was exhibited in 2020 at the NiArt Gallery in Ravenna and in 2021 at the Gobbi Photo Studio Gallery n Urbino. Lando adapts the ancient Byzantine tradition of mosaic in photo-based compositions, referencing the renowned 5th and 6th century mosaics of Ravenna.  These fragmented, dissipating forms loom large amid dark starry skies. These constellations of half-formed, recycled powers from ancient Rome shape-shift their way through space and time, contemplating the enduring potential of myth, and offering us the “specter of belief”.

Viridian first came to know Lando’s work in our 29^th International Juried Competition in which he was a Director’s Choice winner. Currently residing in Padua, Italy he is truly an international artist. Lando has shown his work at the Studio Psacaropulo Museum in Trieste (Italy), and recently at the Site: Brooklyn Art Gallery and at the Viridian Artists Inc. both in New York City. His project for the city of Ravenna (Italy), was presented at the NiArt Gallery in 2020 and most recently in a personal show in 2021/2022 at the Gobbi Photo Studio Gallery in Urbino (Italy); he won the 2021 “Special Prize” for photography and digital art at the DeSidera Art Festival, was longlisted at the 2021 BBA Photography Prize in Berlin, and was a finalist at the 2016 WAC in Wells, UK.

We look forward to sharing with you this fascinating exhibition of post-apocalyptic imagery by Marco Lando.

For further information please contact

Vernita Nemec, Director or Jenny Belin, Assistant Director

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Viridian Artists Gallery or visit our website at viridianartists.com