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Contact Zone at EXMA Museum

Cagliari, Italy

  • Contact Zone at EXMA Cagliari: a wall of binary code spelling Federico Clapis' name faces a video of a child adrift at sea on a doormat
  • White sculpture of a female torso with a child inside holding a tablet, in the vaulted hall of EXMA during Federico Clapis' Contact Zone
  • Touch Scream, two figures reaching out of laptops, between Babydrone and other white sculptures by Federico Clapis at Contact Zone, EXMA
  • Small white figures emerge from canvases on the walls of Contact Zone at EXMA Cagliari, with the Federico Clapis title wall in the background
  • A small white figure climbs out of a jute canvas, lit by gallery spots: an Actor on Canvas work by Federico Clapis at Contact Zone, EXMA
  • A white sculpture of a woman in a long dress stands in front of canvases with tiny figures, in Federico Clapis' Contact Zone show at EXMA
  • A tiny white figure looks up between broken concrete blocks, a sculpture by Federico Clapis shown against a blue wall at Contact Zone, EXMA
  • A small white figure hangs from a rope stretched across a canvas, with the Contact Zone title wall of Federico Clapis at EXMA behind
  • Babydrone by Federico Clapis, a newborn carried in a sling by a drone, in the foreground of the Contact Zone exhibition hall at EXMA Cagliari
  • Title wall of Contact Zone, art and communication by Federico Clapis at EXMA, beside a bare canvas frame with a small crucified white figure

Contact Zone. Art and Communication According to Federico Clapis was a solo exhibition at EXMA (Exhibiting and Moving Arts), the contemporary art centre housed in the former slaughterhouse on Via San Lucifero in Cagliari, Sardinia. It was curated by Simona Campus, EXMA's artistic director, with Evina Banci and Antonio Manca. The opening took place as a live broadcast on EXMA's Facebook page with the artist and the curator, and the project was conceived as a hybrid format, with online content, talks, performances and viewing rooms alongside the physical show.

The exhibition brought together the core of Clapis' work on globalised communication and on the way screens and social media shape private and public identity. It included canvases from the Actor on Canvas series, in which small figures cast from a scan of the artist's body climb out of or hang from the canvas; sculptures made with digital tools such as Babydrone, a newborn carried by a drone, and Touch Scream, two figures reaching out of laptops; video installations on migration and the environment; and pieces made during the lockdown. The installation views show white sculptures on plinths set against deep blue partitions under the vaulted ceilings, a large video projection of a child adrift at sea, and an entrance wall covered in binary code that spells out the artist's name.

Contact Zone works as an overview of Clapis' sculptural and video practice in the period just before his move into crypto art, and it frames the online world as a space of contact and of isolation at the same time.

Sources

All exhibitions

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