Saturday, April 13th at 8pm, ISSUE and Xing present the US premiere of interdisciplinary Italian artist Francesco Cavaliere’s Abyssal Creatures - Body0 Xilema. A project in the form of sound sculptures blown by Murano masters, Cavaliere explores the narrative of a group of fantastical creatures inspired by images of marine flora of the abyss, hybridized with archetypal figures of the human unconscious. These special objects will be activated as performative sound installations at UrbanGlass in Downtown Brooklyn. The evening will conclude with a conversation between the artist and Abram Deslauriers of UrbanGlass.
The prototype sculpture in transparent crystal with the iridescent head Phalaminàsh 0, is the firstborn of this animal ensemble. The sculpture will be accompanied by the support of two Xilema glass horns, the first glass works created by Cavaliere with Thai glass masters in Berlin in 2014. The combination of Body0 and Xilema will give life to a new transparent chimeric ensemble, which will be installed and played by Cavaliere (voice, glass, microspeakers, laptop).
Suspended between storytelling, the magic of sound, alchemy and science fiction, these objects stimulate the imagination and relocate knowledge about matter and nature. His works enliven his listeners' inner states through a polymorphic activity that combines writing, sound, voice, drawing, and sculpture. Over the years he has developed a veritable dictionary to catalogue the beings that inhabit his abstract fantasy universe: hybrids of objects, animals, plants, planets, trails, cosmic objects, and physical and perceptual phenomena. He notes: "I am a talking scribe ... my voice is a cloud, my pen hisses."
In partnership with the Pratt Fine Art program, students will engage in a special survey class at UrbanGlass on Friday, April 12th at 9am with Cavaliere that will focus on exploratory processes with blown glass in his creations.
Francesco Cavaliere is a visual artist, writer and sound producer born in Tuscany, Italy. He lives and works between Berlin and Turin. From 2011 to today, Cavaliere has produced a series of performances, light and sound actions, concerts, radio and audio-visual works, audio stories, readings in the visual and musical field, and Augmented Reality stories. His work has been shown in museums, art centers and international festivals including: Museo Archeologico Nazionale di Napoli, KORA Contemporary Art Centre, Castrignano de’ Greci; Museo Civico di Storia Naturale, Milano; Ti con zero, Xing/Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Roma; Una Cosa Mostruosa, Sacro Bosco di Bomarzo; Triennale Teatro, FOG, Milano; LUFF Festival, Lausanne; Ambient Festival, Cologne; Live Arts Week/Xing, Bologna; GLUCK 50, Milano; Terraforma, Villa Arconati, Milano; RIBOCA1 Riga International Biennial, Riga; Issue Project Room, New York; Cafè Oto, London; Helicotrema Recorded Audio Festival, RAI radio 3, Milan; INFRA FESTIVAL, Tokyo; BOZAR, Bruxelles; 3HD Fest, HAU Habbel am Ufer, Berlin; Empty Gallery, Honk Kong; 7TH Berlin Biennale; Les Urbaines Festival, Lausanne; Museum of Contemporary Art di Tokyo; Museum of Contemporary Art, Roskilde; Grimmuseum Berlin; CTM festival Berlin; Museum of Contemporary Art, Warsaw: QO2 Bruxelles; Kraak Ghent; ART Brussels.
Abram Deslauriers is a visual, sound and performance artist based in New York City and is the Interim Executive Director at UrbanGlass. Deslauriers earned his MFA in Craft/Material Studies at VCUarts and studied at University of Washington as an undergrad in Interdisciplinary Visual Arts. His art explores identity, being, perception and the pursuit of expressing the authentic self. Deslauriers is a founding member of a collective known as Flock the Optic [FtheO]. By massive output of art spectacles tied to performative interventions, FtheO brings folks of all ages together to activate art.
