BAL – Sculture e Rilievi, Balthasar’s dreamy works return to Michele Chiarlo
Enigmatic, self-deprecating. Hermetic, surreal. Sarcastic.
It is difficult to describe in a couple of adjectives the art of Balthasar Brennenstuhl, an eclectic and stateless artist born in Zurich in 1956. Balthasar possesses a surprising creative entropy, the result of his own biography. Swiss by birth, Parisian by adoption, he studied medicine, psychology and musicology and then devoted himself totally to painting and sculpture. He moved for many years to Italy between Cassinasco, Ovada and Rocca Grimalda before returning to France, to Saint-Mandrier-sur-Mer, where he now lives, a village south of Toulon, in Provence.
It was during the “Italian period” that he met Michele Chiarlo and joined the foundation project of the Art Park La Court. In 2003, Balthasar is an integral part of the group which – under the supervision of Giancarlo Ferraris – designs and creates the first works of the art park of Castelnuovo Calcea, the “artistic commune” that Ferraris himself defined as a “factory among the rows”. For the Art Park, Balthasar created a work with a strong apotropaic flavor, the ancestral head-marker heads: head-shaped sculptures placed on the top of the poles at the beginning of the row, a reminder of an ancient peasant custom that believed them capable of protecting the vineyard from diseases.
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Balthasar, Diptyque tenue
BAL, SCULPTURES AND RELIEFS
from 24 September in Michele Chiarlo’s cellar in Calamandrana.
After 18 years, Balthasar Brennenstuhl returns to Michele Chiarlo. And it does so through the Arte in Cantina initiative, a project curated by Giancarlo Ferraris who has the ambition to attract the artists who participated in the creation of the Art Park La Court to Monferrato. After the personal exhibitions of Dedo Ruggero Fossati, Mark Cooper and Ferraris himself, from Friday 24 September, it will be the turn of BAL – SCULPTURES AND RELIEFS, open from Monday to Friday (10.00-12.00 / 15.00-18.00); Saturday and Sunday by reservation.
In the cellar of Michele Chiarlo, in Calamandrana, it will be possible to observe the works of the master from Zurich.
These are “collage sculptures”, created by juxtaposing heterogeneous materials: a poetics of the object trouvé (“found object”) that is chosen precisely for its modest and everyday aesthetic characteristics, re-imagined and re-invented in an artistic key. This is how pieces of metal, agricultural tools, industrial waste, resins and colors are recomposed and merged into enigmatic yet ringing shapes, capable of recounting the movement of a dream or the epiphany of a childish vision, not dramatic but engaging, with a surreal touch.
Balthasar, Roses
BAL – SCULTURE E RILIEVI
Balthasar Brennenstuhl
C/O Cantina Michele Chiarlo
Strada Nizza-Canelli
14042 Calamandrana (Asti) – Google Maps
INFO AND RESERVATIONS
Ph: (+39) 0141 769030
Email: reservation@chiarlo.it