(NORTH ADAMS, Mass.) – A major installation of work by Italian contemporary artist Francesco Clemente opens at MASS MoCA on Saturday, June 13, at 11am. There will be an opening reception for Francesco Clemente: Encampment on Friday, June 12, 2015 at 5:30pm in the galleries for museum members and for the members of the public with admission tickets.

In Encampment — a multi-part, 30,000 square foot installation occupying MASS MoCA’s largest gallery — Clemente’s transitory experience of changing geographies, diverse cultural climates, and indeed consciousness itself infuses his imagery and art with a particularly rich range of references and meaning. For the past three decades Clemente has traveled often, dividing his work and primary residences between Varanasi, India, and New York. Informed by the logistical realities and production opportunities of making art in wildly disparate locations, his aesthetic investigation of states of flux delves into the nature of passage itself. “I believe in this movement of generating and dissolving, and regenerating and dissolving again — this is a technique for the mind to become and remain awake,” Clemente explains. Passages between bodily pleasure and changing spiritual states, between acts of destruction and creation, and between the seen and unseen are all at the heart of Encampment.

The show’s centerpiece — gathered at MASS MoCA for the first time as a complete ensemble — is a suite of six painted canvas tents, created over the course of three years from 2012 through 2014, in collaboration with a community of artisans in Rajasthan, India, the large 2-pole structures (each measuring some 10’ x 18’ x 12’ high) transform MASS MoCA’s signature Building 5 gallery into a kind of tent village, inhabited by painted human figures both supine and in motion, and emblematic symbols and signs both obvious and arcane.

Passing by and through the tents, the viewer is led to a darkened, theatrically lit space, where Clemente presents four large-scale sculptures. Resembling altars or guideposts that at first appear to be fabricated of wood and other organic materials, the vertical sculptures are, in fact, built and cast from aluminum. The four works — Earth, Moon, Sun, and Hunger — incorporate both traditional forms and references to contemporary life: in Moon, for example, a bronze-colored stereo sits atop a metal work box balanced precariously atop a base made from silvery branches.

In a third mezzanine gallery overlooking the tent encampment, the exhibition includes a stunning new suite of 19 erotically charged paintings, rendered in bright washes of watercolor and exquisitely detailed brushwork in solid body ink. Drawing on the tradition and craft of Mughal miniature painting, the watercolors combine decorative motifs with dreamy imagery that shifts between abstraction and figure painting. Sharply juxtaposing abstract interludes with scenes of love and intense desire, the paintings layer textures and color forms in ways that appear almost collage-like in their spatial complexity.

The opening reception for Francesco Clemente: Encampment is free for members and $7 for not-yet-members and takes place in the galleries on Friday, June 12, from 5:30 to 7pm.

 

 

About MASS MoCA

MASS MoCA is one of the world’s liveliest (and largest) centers for making and enjoying today’s most important art, music, dance, theater, film, and video. Hundreds of works of visual and performing art have been created on its 19th-century factory campus during fabrication and rehearsal residencies, making MASS MoCA among the most productive sites in the country for the creation and presentation of new art. More platform than box, MASS MoCA strives to bring to its audiences art experiences that are fresh, engaging, and transformative.

 

MASS MoCA’s galleries are open 11am to 5pm every day except Tuesdays. The Hall Art Foundation’s Anselm Kiefer exhibition is open seasonally. From June 26 through September 7, 2015, MASS MoCA’s galleries are open 10am to 6pm every day, Sundays through Wednesdays, with extended evening hours to 7pm on Thursdays through Saturdays, when performing arts events are often featured.  Gallery admission is $18 for adults, $16 for veterans and seniors, $12 for students, $8 for children 6 to 16, and free for children 5 and under. Members are admitted free year-round. For additional information, call 413.662.2111 x1 or visit MASS MoCA.