X-tables (2007) Foto Gilda Aloisi

Nora Schultz

Fondazione Giuliani

12 October - 31 December 2010

www.fondazionegiuliani.org

By Emelie Ask

Avere Luogo is Nora Schultz’s first solo-show in Italy and includes about 20 of the German artist’s works, both pieces created in the years prior to the show as well as site-specific ones, which are deeply reflective of Fondazione Giuliani in both a physical and conceptual manner. In this fairly large and spacious exhibition, Schultz delicately treats main interests such as the relationship between the work of art and its observer - as well as that between the collector and his collection -, and the history of both the exhibition space itself and the objects that are included in her works.

Born in Frankfurt in 1975, Nora Schultz is an emerging artist living and working in Berlin. Her minimalist creations bear strong influence of great artists such as Carl Andrè, Robert Morris and Robert Rauschenberg, although this last reference incorporates objects in his works to fit his own ends, whereas Schultz ensures that the history and original function of objects and materials used are strongly echoed and lives on in her sculptures. As perfectly reflected in the show, the artist generally works with poor materials, often found randomly in varying sites: usually discharged or abandoned objects. Once incorporated to become works or parts of works in a show, the artist puts a significant focus on the pieces’ location in space, and their relation to the same. The notion of immediacy as a result of the observer’s direct interaction with her works has always been a central issue for Schultz, and her works and the objects within them are not necessarily explained - for example, informative labels are completely omitted from Avere Luogo - but left in their essence to have this immediate effect upon the viewer.

Penetrating an exhibition space’s history both in terms of the physical structure itself as well as the concepts around which it emerged is an approach typical of Schultz’s, applied in Avere Luogo as well. This time, the materials of the works were collected after many days and much energy spent in Rome and Roman scrap yards, and the result is a group of minimalist sculptures in natural tones of colors, often seemingly fragile and always referring to one another as well as to the Giuliani collection itself, as mentioned. Though the artist was invited to freely incorporate art works from the collection - which mainly consists of sculptures and installations by a wide range of Italian and international artists - in her show, Schultz chose to comment on the immediate relationship between Mr. Giuliani and his collection; this intention was achieved by the juxtaposition of her own works to a series of photos from the office in which the collection is on display, and which strongly reflects the intimate nature of the relationship between the collector and his works. The photos are one of the many red threads in the show whose circular path is initiated by a reference both to Rome as a city of many layers, as well as the exhibition space itself as situated semi-underground. The work, Autoscale (2009), refers to a 1998 drawing by Vito Acconci from the collection, which is the only physical work incorporated in the show as it is mounted on the wall next to Schultz’s work. The drawing comments on a runway that was to be constructed underground, and the notion of construction is also a returning aspect of many works in the show. Following these two pieces, the visitor enters the space where Schultz has left the traces of a private performance in the work Print Station avere luogo (2010), a site-specific piece in multiple parts that is considered one of the central works of the show due to the artist’s presence in the art work. Behind the wall in the next room is a work with strong references to Andrè, part of which is constituted by a carpet and hence echoing the content of one of the earlier works in the show, Untitled (Foam Matress I) (2007). This circular notion is fundamental to the artist, who does not perceive of her show as having a beginning and an end, but instead as a whole body, flexible and in constant modification. Another important work is Car (2009), and Untitled (2010), where magnets are used in order to keep parts together; this feature is also central to Schultz’s work, as she avoids fixing and thus determining various materials to one another, but instead stresses the possibility of transformation and flexibility within each object.

Avere Luogo is an extremely rich exhibition under its stripped off sculptures, and this notion beautifully echoes that of Fondazione Giuliani itself, eternally supported by concepts, materials, beauty and philosophy as embedded in its impressive collection.