On Sunday 9 February ROOM EAST will open Davide Balliano’s exhibition “Four o Four” at 41 Orchard Street. With a background in performance, drawing and sculpture, he has created gilded wooden reliefs and multi-paneled paintings incised with a detailed pattern of bricks. The works possess the anthropological potency of relics and the meditative force of religious icons. His minimal forms, seemingly stripped of content, share the haunting qualities of empty architectural niches and blank cellar walls.
The title of the exhibition “Four o Four” refers to the most common error message known throughout the world. It is the universal code for internet failure, when a server does not respond to a request for access. By spelling out the numerical code, the title makes reference to the act of denial, and the implicit paradox of translating content into form. Balliano is fascinated with the plight of such a refusal, the inherent limitation of the creative act when an artist uses materials as a means to execute an idea.
Born in Turin, Italy in 1983 Balliano currently lives and works in New York, where he had his first solo exhibition at Location One in 2011. In the past year he had solo exhibitions at Galerie Rolando Anselmi, Berlin and Michel Rein Gallery, Paris. His work has been exhibited at the Madre Museum, Naples (2012), The Watermill Center (2009/2011), MoMA PS1 (2010), Sean Kelly Gallery (2010), EACC Museum (2010), and at Artists Space (2009).
For downloadable press release, click here.
