Internationally-acclaimed artist Rossella Biscotti is having a solo exhibition at Blitz, as the art gallery launches its 2019 season.
Entitled Three Works and A Script, the exhibition, being curated by Sara Dolfi Agostini, will portray the artist’s practice with a selection of her key artworks along with a work in progress, her most ambitious to date, originally presented at Van Abbemuseum in Eindhoven (2016) and intended to be produced in Malta over the coming year.
Biscotti explores modern society reclaiming moments in our present or recent history which unveil the relation between individuals and the power structures that interfere with their identity and freedom.
Every artwork is a context-specific project embedded in a different social reality, taking her practice to new territories she commits to through long-term collaborative research.
In more than 10 years of artistic practice, she has sourced expertise from a wide spectrum of disciplines including law, science, engineering and economics.
At Blitz, the exhibition takes off with her seminal work The Undercover Man (2008), a short film about FBI agent Joseph Pistone – also known as Donnie Brasco – as he mechanically re-enacts his testimony against the Mafia after serving undercover for six years. It continues with a major display of works from the series The Journey (2016-2019) – including a wall painting, two blueprints, a slideshow and a map.
The Journey is an ongoing work in the Mediterranean Sea between Italy, Libya and Malta, where during the upcoming year the artist will perform and chronicle the sinking of a block of Carrara marble.
The work Acquired Nationalities (2014), by contrast, is a Jacquard-woven textile from the series 10x10 which questions the relation between statistics and reality, modernism and abstraction. Finally, Alfabeto (2018), a series of 12 photographic prints premiering at Blitz, is an homage to pioneer photographer of movement Eadweard Muybridge, and portrays how the loss of a natural skill such as walking can be relearned with the aid of a machine.
From now on, Blitz will continue its pursuit of internationalisation and interdisciplinary dialogue by presenting a series of curated exhibitions of established international artists whose works have never been exhibited in Malta before – yet specifically resonate with Malta’s unique history, culture and social landscape.
The show will be accompanied by a free illustrated publication with an essay by the curator, visuals from the exhibition and more insights about the artworks.
The exhibition opens at Blitz, 68, St Lucia Street, Valletta on Friday. It will run until March 23. Opening times: Tuesday-Friday: 1 to 6pm; Saturday: 10am to 1pm. Entrance is free.
A public talk between the curator and the artist will take place at the Blitz Bar on Saturday at 5.30pm.