MATtam 30
Manto Arte Temporanea | Temporary Art Manto
short exhibitions in found spaces
Il Cubo | Via XX Settembre 31 | Mantova
Clelia Mori
Sberleffo all'autore e lavori in b/n
Saturday October 17 2015
only between 4:30 and 6:30 PM
In Paris in 2006 I saw Ingres in a show at the Louvre. It reminded me of Man Ray's photo of Kiki de Montparnasse with the profile of two violin sound holes glued to her back. I have always liked the sensuality of that image. I looked it up and read its title. I had never read it before: Le Violon d'Ingres (The Violin of Ingres).This title was not only ironic. It made me mad and I thought about sensuality yet again. That violin is very attractive and musical and it suggests that once one has played a woman, one can store her in a corner until the next use. I started painting her.
I began to paint her in oil removing one of the holes, to see how she sounds this way and I then continued for forty canvases, all the same, yet all different. I investigated male and female sensuality on one single body.On some of the backs I wrote the hypersensual ecstasy of Therese of Avila.
I tried to understand which of the two women has received more from love. And I also painted the Man Ray's missing Violon.
The Black and White ink works of 1993 dealt with the sign and its synthesis, its expressivity and its potential for balance. They probed my feelings about the relation between the mark and matter. They are pushed to the limit: one and then one and then one. It's a study about power and it lead me into an iconic trail – it's my alphabet.
A Po river woman, I was born in Boretto (Reggio Emilia, Italy) in 1950. Because of my love for the sign, for color and image I studied at the Institute of Art. I passed the admission exam and started living in Parma. At 19, after the graduation, I was allowed to teach in upper and lower middle school. I started exhibiting and most of all I started painting: it's still my passion.
I taught for many years, then I got fed up and worked as a librarian and as a cultural worker in Poviglio (Reggio Emila), where I still live. My studio is an easel standing between the kitchen and the living room. When needed, I also use the old dining table, the floor, the patio, indoor and outdoor walls. Donatella Franchi says I serve food that feeds both bodies and minds at my place where I have also raised a son who is an artist too. Recently I have exhibited in Milano, Firenze, Porto Sant 'Elpidio, Gualtieri, Collecchio, Poviglio, Reggio Emilia. Today my works are on show in Parma. I gave talks about my work at the Higher Master Program of the Philosophy Department of Verona University and at the cycle of Not with one only voice in the region of Marche.
