ALESSANDRO MORODER | h E ll

Rolando Anselmi is pleased to present h E ll, Alessandro Moroder’s first solo show in the gallery space of Berlin. In h E ll Moroder investigates notions of genealogy and nature by completing a pilgrimage to his father’s native Dolomite Mountains in Northern Italy, creating—and confronting—a new discourse of endurance and memory through personal history, physicality, and medium. In this new body of paintings, installation, and photography, the artist examines a performative mark-making process by operating as a non-figurative representation of the body, material arrangement, and motion. In the diptych Dirt Painting #24 / #25 (Perseus with the Head of Medusa) the artist use sheets of cotton acting as summations of labor as the once pristine pieces of fabrics are buried in the immediate surroundings of dirt to create a site-specific index of his journey. The excess debris and enamel paint is then striped away to discover a new vernacular of subtraction, each impression cataloging the process in a study of nature, endurance, and chance. Mimicking Antonio Canova’s marble sculpture Perseus with the Head of Medusa, Moroder’s paintings examine the similarities in the two materials (marble and cloth) and their respective function as a recording of a culminated journey, Perseus’ triumph over Medusa, and Moroder’s recapitulation of a personal history through medium. Untitled is an installation consisting of three sheets of cotton with traces of dirt and enamel paint presented as a wall relief, each nailed by a singular point in relation to a background wall drawing referencing death metal imaginary. The photograph h E ll depicts a typical late summer afternoon in the Dolomites in which heavy clouds and fog create a symbiosis of light grays. The photograph is presented upside down, wherein the word “HELL” appears in the top left corner, a camera trick one typically learns during elementary school by manually changing the current date to create this code. Moroder portrays the same mountain range in a different season three years later in the photograph Snow. This ethereal work depicts a close up of the snow covering a similar field, uninterrupted by man or nature. With no focal point to examine the information, this serene and quiet setting challenges the viewer’s eye. Alessandro Moroder (b. 1989) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Recent solo shows include: Site-Specific Installation (Ortisei, 2018), FIFI Projects (San Pedro, 2018, 2016), ASHES/ASHES (New York, 2017), Galleria Acappella (Naples, 2015), HVW8 (Los Angeles, 2013), California Institute of the Arts (Valencia, 2011). Recent group shows include: FIFI Projects (Mexico City, 2018, 2017, 2016; San Pedro, 2017, 2016, 2015), Code (Copenhagen, 2018), Huset For Kunst Og Design (Holstebro, 2017), Marie Kirkegaard Gallery (Copenhagen, 2017), Palazzo Fruscione (Salerno, 2016), Rolando Anselmi (Rome, 2016), HVW8 (Los Angeles, 2016, 2013), Thierry Goldberg Gallery (New York, 2015), Galerie Derouillon (Paris, 2015), Galleria Patricia Armocida (Milan, 2013).