Luca Grimaldi & Robert Barta: Kiosk

KIOSK - opening Saturday February 11 from 4 - 6pm

Luca Grimaldi & Robert Barta

For the show KIOSK, the two artists collaborated in selecting works that combine their common interests, while existing in different media. Their aim is to recontextualize public blindness towards an awareness regarding the beauty and importance of pure detail.

The driving force behind these objects is the repetition of our everyday behaviors and rituals. In the epicenter of the volcano, we are trying to show that inside, the lava is pretty cold. By focusing, you can escape or you can enjoy yourself without getting burned.
Today, 'gold rush' does not mean digging in the unknown to find success, but showing off as large and loud as possible. Sometimes it's better to have a second look at the simplicity of things we already know in order to find out what we are missing in the bigger picture.
A system can't be explained by looking at the behavior of its single components, as already emphasized in the late fifties by Buckminster Fuller in his Synergetics studies.

Robert Barta casts an amused eye on the world and finds the material for his artistic work in everyday objects or situations - the foundations of his unbridled world. With slight alterations, incongruous combinations, words plays and shifts in meaning, he establishes a strategy of misuse, which transforms the nature of familiar objects to reveal their inner essence and the paradoxes and tensions that give them life.

Luca Grimaldi is an Italian-born painter, whose interest also lies in the banality of the visual images we perceive on a daily basis. What seems to be a wallpaper of repetitive graphic images, becomes an interesting subject for Luca. He is able to show details we cannot see and transforms those wallpapers into a strong and interesting labyrinth one wants to get lost in.
His style in painting is playing a trick on our perception, which is why he chose to display it as clear and therefore as radical as possible.