54th Biennale of Venice PINOCCHIO GOES  TO SMOLNY
 CHRISTIANO CERETTI

Biography of Christian Balzano

Christian Balzano was born on February 12^th, 1969 in Livorno where he lives and works.

In 1986 he attended the School of Fine Arts in Pisa, specialising in glass artworks. In 1989 he opened an artistic glassworks called “Riflesso” in Cascina (Pisa) where he worked until 1997.

In 1995 and 1996 he took part in the third and fourth exhibition-competition Giovani e Materia: Ricerca e Tendenza (Young People and Matter – Research and Trends) in Florence. At this point he also began travelling every year to different countries for find sources of inspiration.Alpha

Meanwhile he continued to exhibit: in August 1998 he took part in an extempore show, part of the Serate Illuminate (Enlightened Nights) festival at the Franco Basaglia Centre in Leghorn, and in November he participated in a group exhibition at the Atelier delle Arti in the same city.

In 1999 he opened a modern ethnic furniture shop in Livorno called “Deserto” and worked there until 2005, focusing on interior design. He also took part in the 1999 second edition of the Serate Illuminate festival.

From 2001-2005 years he had organised a lot of personal exhibitions in his hometown, in Milan,  in Pietrasanta and in the Rome. In 2006 he participated in a two-man show at the Tiberti di Rovato space in Brescia. There were two group exhibitions in 2007: one at the Poliform in Bologna, the other at the Stragapede/Perini Gallery in Milan. He then took part in the group show Segni (Signs), at the San Lorenzo Gallery in Milan. In 2008 he set up the event-exhibition on the theme of superstition at the San Lorenzo Gallery in Milan. In the same year he participated in OPEN XI, an international exhibition of sculpture and installations at the Venice Lido and he took part in the group show Il vuoto e le forme 1 (The void and the forms 1), an international sculpture, installation and painting exhibition in Chiavenna (Sondrio). Since May 2009 Balzano is engaged with a travelling exhibition, titled Luci del destino, in some museums in Argentina. The show is organized by the Lu.C.C.A. in collaboration with the U.C.A. - Pontificia Universidad Catolica Argentina of Buenos Aires, the CEC - Centro de Expresiones Contemporeas of Rosario and the Museo Provincial de Bellas Artes Franklin Rawson of San Juan. In October 2009, he exhibited his work at the "Milanogallerie' show which was held at the Palazzo della Triennale in Milan. This exhibition was promoted by the Milan Chamber of Commerce and organized by the National Association of Contemporary Art Galleries. In 2010 he had a solo show at the Lu.C.C.A. In the same year he took part to a collective exhibition at the Venturino Venturi Museum in Loro Ciuffenna, Arezzo, obtaining the Critic Prize Award, and to "La trilogia del colore: rosso", at the Galleria San Lorenzo in Milan.

In December he was present at "Exhibitalia" in the Miami Art District, on the occasion of Art Basel Miami, performing on the side of a Fiat 500. In the same month he inaugurated the solo show  "Passaggi" in the Rupestrian Church of S. Antonio in Matera. In April 2011 he took part to the "Thai-Italy Art and Cultural Exchange 2011" project, curated by Maurizio Vanni and Sasivimol Santiratpakdee, at the Art Centre of Silpakorn University in Bangkok. In july of that year, he was invited to the 54^th International Art Exhibition Venice Biennale, Italian Pavillon, Tuscan region, curated by Vittorio Sgarbi at the Centro per l’Arte Contemporanea Luigi Pecci of the Prato.

 In His works  he uses Alpha

the palette of human emotions, multimedia and the rejection of any temporary bindings - these elements of the Balzan bases its installation, offering the viewer to find a red thread through hearing and touch, feelings that we usually use a small, impacting on our natural instinct

Biography of Gioni David Parra

Gioni David Parra was born in San Giuliano Terme (Pisa) in 1962. After polishing his style, improving it from a technical and thematic point of view, the artist has recently renewed and settled his pictorial message, looking for and developing the early and primitive conditions of the objects that are part of our life. We could define it as a sort of philosophy, we could call it "sprouting". According to Parra, Art should awaken visions of the early beginning of things, find out their hidden forces and spasms before their becoming real, their turning into "worlds". Mankind could find it an enjoyable or terrifying experience. As a consequence, his pictorial language is quite complex and varied, where different techniques are used, techniques that successfully result into something mellow and basically substantial just in a single work of art. To be able to shape a sculpture using such a technique is not an easy job; we can say the enterprise becomes more difficult when the artist wants to keep track of his themes giving them a tridimensional effect. Consequently, Parra has been forced to simplify, to ponder his style, making it lighter. On top of that, thinking about a symbolic register to inform us about his interior turmoil. The result is a successful balance between his restless creativity and the transformation of the materials used. The results are amazing for the extraordinary resilience of his works, their being "open" to utter those powerful forces that keep on urging on the bark just solidified of his primeval bodies.

Parra's concept of making Art can have as its motto Galileo's "try and try again". He is deeply involved in experimenting and working on the preparatory stage, which clearly flows into his works in the end. Above all, there is his tremendous dissatisfaction with all that hesitates and lingers in fulfilling a fixed target, without overcoming it, something certainly inherited from Nietzsche and the Greeks.

At the moment Parra works and lives in Lido di Camaiore, working with well-known art galleries. Some of his works can be admired in museum Foundations and relevant Italian and foreign collections. He is also present and his works published in several Italian exhibitions and fairs.

In the course of the last two years he has engage with success the exportation to his work in foreign gallery and museum. Remember at his purpose Berlin and Bangkok.

They have write for his work:

Sandro Barbagallo, Valerio Dehò, Francesco Delli Carri, Stefano De Rosa, Lodovico Gierut, Paolo Levi, Valerio Meattini, Maurizio Vanni, ecc.

February 2012 Woman's  club  in OIOIOI Art Gallery with Vittorio Sgarbi

Special thanks to Nino Ippolito, Tania Riccò and Sabrina Colle.

Location

2 MOSCOW LADIES CLUB IN OIOIOI ART GALLERY

Второе «заседание» The Moscow Ladies Club

Почему у мужчин есть право на клуб в высоком смысле этого слова, а дамы должны довольствоваться девичниками и SPA? Накануне Нового года Андрей Фомин и Валентин Юдашкин решили исправить эту несправедливость, предложив светским девушкам вместо сигар и разговоров про охоту table talk про моду. Новый для Москвы формат мероприятия получил гордое имя The Moscow Ladies Club, и на днях состоялось его второе «заседание». 

На этот раз модераторы вечера Андрей Фомин и Валентин Юдашкин, а также вновь составивший дамам компанию галерист Михаил Долгополов приготовили сюрприз. Собравшихся ждал Витторио Сгарби — личность столь же знаменитая, сколько противоречивая: так, он является куратором итальянского павильона Венецианской биеннале и одновременно люто ненавидит современное искусство, а рейтинги его шоу на итальянском ТВ прямо пропорциональны масштабам возмущения у зрителей. 

 Но в рамках The Moscow Ladies Club негодования не случилось: Сгарби сразу же очаровал собравшихся (и те не остались в долгу: в конце вечера восторги по поводу красоты русских женщин звучали из уст итальянца особенно искренне), а на его смелые шутки Ирина Чайковская, Светлана Захарова, Снежана Георгиева, Юлия Полыскалова и другие гостьи реагировали не менее острыми и ироничными замечаниями, чем сценаристы «Прожекторперисхилтон».