Massimo Bartolini’s first solo exhibition in Ireland is currently on view at Lismore Castle Arts through May 27, 2017 | April 4, 2017

Olnick Spanu Art Program artist Massimo Bartolini‘s first solo exhibition in Ireland is currently on view at Lismore Castle Arts through May 27, 2017.

Responding to the unique gallery space that is St. Carthage Hall, the artist has created a new organ piece specially for the building. The piece takes the form of a ‘well’ with a music box inside – the box plays the first 10 bars of the John Cage work In a Landscape. Related to other organ works by the artist, it functions like a barrel organ which plays automatically. The air blown through the metal pipes first passes through the holes in the music roll, giving rise to variations in tone and length. The air passing through the mechanics also lends the work a strangely human quality, further referencing spiritual connections. The juxtaposition of a minimal, brutalist structure with such an intimate, fragile sound is central to Massimo’s practice.

More information about the exhibition can be found here.

Massimo Bartolini’s work embraces various materials and techniques, from sculpture and performance to photography. His works have included an elevated floor that created the impression of distorted space; an installation in which a device on the heel of a visitor’s shoes altered the light in the exhibition space; and rooms suffused with perfume and the sound of leaking water. These, often sensual, artworks induce in the viewer a meditative state that is still highly experiential, making us reflect on the relativity of what is stable and unchangeable.

Massimo Bartolini at the 3rd Pune Biennale, India, until January 29, 2017 | January 9, 2017

Olnick Spanu Art Program artist Massimo Bartolini presents a new sculptural installation for the 2017 Pune Biennale, India, on view until January 29, 2017.

An Impression of Massimo Bartolini’s social sculpture

Taking the form of a small amphitheatre around a tree in one of Pune’s leafy gardens, Sambhaji Park, this social sculpture is meant to be both symbolic and functional; while surrounding a tree, it will become a venue for short dance performances.

Bartolini’s work is featured among 21 other artists brought together by curators Zasha Colah and Luca Cerizza for the flagship exhibition of the Pune Biennale, now in its third edition. The title—Habit-co-Habit—reflects the dynamic nature of living together in a big city or a city, like Pune, which is rapidly growing.
More information about the 2017 Pune Biennale can be found here.

Massimo Bartolini exhibition opens at Frith Street Gallery, London | June 3, 2016

Massimo Bartolini’s most recent solo exhibition, Golden Square, is on view in London from May 25th through July 30th. The show is presented by Frith Street Gallery, in both its Golden Square and Soho Square locations. The eponymous exhibition is indeed in large part a meditation on the site itself, and draws heavily from the historical, artistic, and literary lore of its location. In Bartolini’s words, these works, which engage a host of various concepts and are realized across a myriad of media, constitute a kind of “memento mori” to the more than 4,000 seventeenth-century plague victims believed to have been buried in a mass grave beneath where Golden Square stands today.

Bartolini_FrithStreetGallery_airplane — Airplane (over 4000), 2016, bardiglio imperiale marble, 120.5 x 28 x 20 cm

Bartolini was the participant in the 2006 Olnick Spanu Art Program. More information about Conveyance, his site-specific work found on the grounds of the Olnick Spanu estate in Garrison, NY, can be found here. Golden Square is the latest of several exhibitions of Bartolini’s work at Frith Street in recent years, which include solo shows in 2008 and 2013, as well as this year’s group exhibition Tell it Slant. A short essay by the artist about the ideation of the current exhibition can be found here.