Project Room #16 | Vibeke Mascini. Rendezvous

The Foundation presents Rendezvous by Vibeke Mascini, the second event in the annual exhibition cycle of Project Room, the Foundation’s “observatory” project dedicated to the latest developments in the international art scene, entrusted for 2022 to curators Chiara Pirozzi and Alessandra Troncone.

In Rendezvous, a new project conceived by Vibeke Mascini (The Hague, 1989) for the spaces of the Foundation, the Dutch artist brings her research into dialogue with the suggestions derived from a deeper exploration of Arnaldo Pomodoro’s artistic practice and the documents preserved in his archive. Interested in the possibilities of material transformation through the alternative and self-generating use of electricity – understood both as a natural property and as a result of industrial processes – Mascini creates complex multimedia installations, often in collaboration with scholars from other disciplines, based on the balance of mirror-like concepts such as life-death, positive-negative, action-stasis.

From these interests arises the artist’s curiosity about the use that Arnaldo Pomodoro makes of the cuttlefish bone as a surface to engrave for the creation of jewelry and small sculptures, where the negative imprint of the object created is left behind. Rendezvous reflects on the concept of imprint, understood by Mascini as the physical trace of a dynamic time that crystallizes.

Expanding her research into the field of natural sciences, the artist has initiated a close collaboration with MUSE – the Science Museum of Trento, which has created for the project an exclusive series of 3D scans of portions of dinosaur footprints from the paleontological site of Lavini di Marco (Rovereto), where the intersection between different animal species that lived hundreds of years apart is clearly visible. Based on these scans, Mascini has created for the Project Room space of the Foundation some casts filled with water in the concave part, which will vibrate in response to the movement of visitors thanks to the presence of a carbon dioxide sensor. In this way, Rendezvous tells and makes evident a layering of signs imbued with new meanings, capable of transforming a past and static time into a present and dynamic one through the surprise generated by a new and unexpected encounter.

On the occasion of the exhibition, a booklet is published, with a critical text by Chiara Pirozzi and Alessandra Troncone, and a conversation between Vibeke Mascini and Massimo Bernanrdi (Conservator for Paleontology at MUSE – Science Museum of Trento).