Alessandro Moroder “Honey“ (installation view).

Press Release, March 2019

Marie Kirkegaard Gallery is pleased to present Honey, LA-based artist, Alessandro Moroder’s first solo show at the gallery and in Copenhagen. In the exhibition Honey, Moroder investigates disparate themes such as time, chance, and materiality by creating and confronting a new discourse of memory through nature and personal history. In this new body of work, Moroder continues to examine his performative mark-making processes wherein the works operate as a non-figurative representation of the body and its traces. These monochrome works function both as a recording of a performance and the act of labour and manipulation of materiality.

The two paintings, Untitled, and And There They Seemed, Bathed In Silence. All Alone, both use several layers of silk chiffon or cheese cloth, respectively, instead of the traditional cotton canvas, serving as an index of the artist’s physicality and material arrangement. The performative element of these actions are documented in the stains and markings of the soil as the once pristine pieces of fabric are buried in its immediate surroundings of dirt to create a site-specific index of time, some works created at Moroder’s studio and some in the Salton Sea, a desolate, shallow lake 2 hours outside of Los Angeles. The excess debris and enamel paint is then striped away to discover a new vernacular of subtraction, each impression cataloguing the process in a study of nature, chance, and gesture.

Alessandro Moroder “Untitled (Silk Chiffon #5),” 2019
(enamel and dirt on silk chiffon, 101x76cm).

Alessandro Moroder “Ten Sheets Of Used Cloth,” 2015
(enamel and dirt on cheese cloth, 170x84cm).

Alessandro Moroder “Say Your Prayer,” 2018 (cotton and enamel and dirt on cheese cloth, 22x30x48cm).

In both One Sheet Of Used Silk, and Ten Sheets Of Used Cloth, Moroder forgoes the structural limitation of stretcher bars by incorporating installation pieces. Utilizing the same action of layering abraded cloth, Ten Sheets Of Used Cloth, presents itself as a secondary examination alongside And There They Seemed, Bathed In Silence. All Alone, while investigating notions of physicality and chance. One Sheet Of Used Silk drapes from the ceiling by various points, producing a looming precarious spatial effect over the viewer.

Alessandro Moroder “Honey“ (installation view).

Alessandro Moroder “And There They Seemed. Bathed In Silence. All Alone,” 2019 (enamel and dirt on cheese cloth, 40x30cm).

Alessandro Moroder “And There They Seemed. Bathed In Silence. All Alone,” 2019 (enamel and dirt on cheese cloth, 40x30cm).

Alessandro Moroder “And There They Seemed. Bathed In Silence. All Alone” (detail), 2019 (enamel and dirt on cheese cloth, 40x30cm).

The sculptural piece, Say Your Prayer, functions in a similar way to Moroder’s canvas works, only this time, a collection of 20 t-shirts, some ranging over 15 years, attempts to substantiate memory with a physical date or visual signifier. Concert tours or indecipherable logos recapitulate themselves through text and imagery by creating an index of a night we’d never forget. A singular piece of used cloth is folded underneath the first shirt attempting to metaphor itself as a newly formed memory or a signifier of time.

Alessandro Moroder “One Sheet Of Used Silk” (detail), 2019 (silk chiffon).

Alessandro Moroder “One Sheet Of Used Silk” (detail), 2019 (silk chiffon).

Alessandro Moroder (b. 1989) lives and works in Los Angeles, California. Recent solo shows include: Rolando Anselmi (Berlin, 2018), Site-specific Installation (Ortisei, 2018), FIFI Projects (San Pedro, 2018, 2016), ASHES/ASHES (New York, 2017). With Marie Kirkegaard Moroder has previously been shown in the group show Material Matters (Copenhagen, 2017/2018), and at Art Herning Art Fair (Herning, 2019).

Opening: Friday March 22nd, 17-19 | Facebook event
Exhibition period: March 22nd - May 4th 2019.
Opening hours: Tuesday-friday: 12-18, saturday: 12-15.

Alessandro Moroder “Honey“ (installation view).

Alessandro Moroder “Untitled (Silk Chiffon #6),” 2019
(enamel and dirt on silk chiffon, 40x30cm).

Alessandro Moroder “Untitled (Silk Chiffon #3),” 2019
(enamel and dirt on silk chiffon, 40x30cm).

Alessandro Moroder “Untitled (Silk Chiffon #7),” 2019 (enamel and dirt on silk chiffon, 40x30cm).

Alessandro Moroder “Untitled (Silk Chiffon #4),” 2019 (enamel and dirt on silk chiffon, 40x30cm).

Alessandro Moroder “Untitled (Silk Chiffon #1),” 2019 (enamel and dirt on silk chiffon, 40x30cm).

Alessandro Moroder “Honey“ (installation view).

Alessandro Moroder “And There They Seemed. Bathed In Silence. All Alone,” 2019 (enamel and dirt on cheese cloth, 101x76cm).

Alessandro Moroder “Honey“ (installation view).