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Riccardo Arena
Four Times A tree
february 24 - march 7 2009
Opening: thuesday february 24, 18h00

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- Project A - Shanghai(II edition)
'Four Times a Tree,' is the first in a series of site-specific projects in different locations on the planet that have as common denominator the same working methodology, activated through a process of participation in the place of the investigation. The aim of the projects is the production of works whose initial phases are generated by the randomness of events.
The protagonist of the first project is the city of Shanghai, in China, were twelve works were generated, developed and produced during the course of three stays between 2006 and 2008. Within these explorations the elements that presented themselves gradually started accumulating, juxtaposing and superimposing, actively participating to the building of a visual and narrative structure. Photographs, archive images, texts, suggestions and experiences merged together, generating works that describe utopian visions of a garden. This natural area originates from an unidentified catastrophe that organically coalesces all the found elements and narrates the adventure of a human generation, whose presence is felt through the harmonisation of its remains. The exhibition will comprise a series of printed works, as well as a video piece realized with a number of techniques that will play fundamental roles in the concept of the show as a whole. One of these aspects is that of "layers", the same dynamic present in the creation of composite images. During the first phase of the work Arena has recorded and catalogued images of Shanghai. These images are the base visual elements used in the building of the methodology first and the works later. Once composed, the images have been printed again in their separate elements. Using local professional paper-cut artisans, each element has been cut to fine precision, and then recomposed on to panels. These superimposed levels interact and form relationships on a physical level. The aim is to create a dialogue amongst the various elements so that their juxtaposition takes on further meanings, generating unexpected.