5779. 1/12 – Patrick Tuttofuoco

Patrick Tuttofuoco
Untitled, 2009
neon light, metal support

71 x 55 x 3 cm

The first work to be presented as part of 5779 is Untitled (2009) by Patrick Tuttofuoco. The artist sees the hand, protagonist of the work, as the ultimate symbol of man making, especially during a time in which the West is more and more outsourcing its production to the East. Following issues such as technology, craftsmanship and globalization, issues that are part of Tuttofuoco’s practice from the very beginning, Untitled encapsulates a deep belief in the current acceleration of humankind’s progress and at the same time the desire to find a “new balance between men and the physical reality surrounding him, a balance that should consider, simultaneously, the macro and the micro”.

Patrick Tuttofuoco’s Untitled will remain on view until October 8th, which is the 30th day of Tishrei, the first month of the Hebrew calendar. At the end of the 12 months BUILDING will present a catalogue conceived as a calendar and featuring all the 12 artworks presented during the year, which will be revealed month after month.

BUILDINGBOX is an independent space within the premises of BUILDING, characterized by its own unique program. The opening project, curated by Nicola Trezzi, opens on the week of Rosh HaShana, which is the beginning of the new year – the year 5779, as the title says – according to the Hebrew calendar.

Following these premises, a window gallery which is visible 24/7, and a calendar which consists of 12 months (Nisan, Iyar, Sivan, Tammuz, Av, Elul, Tishrei, Marcheshvan, Kislev, Tevet, Shevat, and Adar), 5779 is a group exhibition in which several artworks are not present next to each other but rather one after the other. The structure of the calendar – day after day, month after month, year after year – becomes the guideline for the presentation of artworks by several artists; in doing so, this structure transforms the essence behind group exhibitions, from coexistence and juxtaposition to linearity and procession.

Furthermore, this specific format deconstructs the very core of the group exhibition format, which is, by definition, an exhibition in which several artworks, by several artists, are presented next to each other in a confined space and for a specific amount of time. With 5779 the idea of a group exhibition in which works of art by several artists appear, in the same space, one after the other – substituting one another, replacing one another – suggests an inversion in the equation at the base of exhibition making. Rather than rooting exhibition making into space, as it usually happens, this time the exhibition is rooted in time rather than space.