APPROACH #2

Maha Malluh, Valentina Palazzari

21. 01. 2023 - 25. 03. 2023

curated by Davide Sarchioni

The dialogue between the works by Maha Malluh and Valentina Palazzari is a dialogue between two different usege of traces impressed on the surface of the artwork. While Maha Malluh impresses daylife objects on photosensitive paper, Valentina Palazzari focuses on using rust to create memorial images made of impression and traces.

In Malluh’s works, the imprints of personal objects are negative images that can be associated with those of an X-ray screening. They generate loss of detail and of the original function of the object, yet evoke recognizable but static and aseptic symbolic forms, the arrangement and typology of which determines a tension able to expresses the clash between the cultural tradition of Saudi Arabia and the Western one.

Palazzari, on the other hand, works with the rust obtained by soliciting the oxidation of construction site iron rods by direct contact with plastic and cotton surfaces, verifying the unpredictable reactions and creating images dense of dramatic pictorial lyricism. Deeposits of matter, marks, and burns are traces of an “alchemical” process and of an ongoing change.

Unlike the photometric impressions of Malluh’s objects, in which the physical object becomes its image -evoking its history- in Palazzari’s works rust does not intend to reproduce or represent something, but is itself a living matter that marks the pictorical surface with the immaterial value of memory, time, and their continuous transformations. Both Malluh and Palazzari, albeit with different intentions and outcomes, attribute a cultural weight to the objects and the materials with which they act. (Davide Sarchioni)

Maha Malluh (Jeddah, Arabia Saudita, 1959) (Jeddah, Arabia Saudita, 1959) is known mostly for her mixed-media installations that often incorporate found objects symbolically representing Saudi Arabian culture such as traditional enamel dishes, cassette recordings of religious lectures, oil barrels or iconic architectural elements commonly used in regional architecture. Her work Al-Muallaqat from the series Food for Thought (2012), was the first artwork by female artist exhibited in public in Saudi Arabia.

The research of Valentina Palazzari (Terni, 1975) explores the concepts of memory, space and time to reveal a transitory and constantly changing of reality, moving freely between the languages of sculpture, painting, installation and video. The artist creates large installations conceived for specific contexts with which he establishes an effective dialogic approach, starting from an investigation into the physical properties and aesthetic qualities of the different materials used (electro-welded mesh, construction site plastics, electric cables and organic materials ), focusing on the natural processes of oxidation, decomposition and transformation in relation to external agents and time.