Curating art, narrating reality.
A place where creativity and research meet.
Here are our projects:
Un manifesto senza Dimensioni is the exhibition by Cesare Fullone and Cesare Pietroiusti.
The artists focus, with different and personal formal solutions, on the action of ‘transmission’ as the founding element of an apparatus and a relationship and the situa work in this interstice, deliberately not fixed but always in possible re-definition.
Cesare Pietroiusti presents Disegno incompiuto, an installation made up of 400 drawings– each different and created with the flame passed on the sheet to simulate a – definitive-stroke. However, the work is completed only in one passage, that of the spectator, who, during the exhibition, takes the drawing away and later commits to burning the sheet, thus completing the process of creation-formalization of the work.
Cesare Fullone entrusts fragile and common objects, such as leaves, with messages that are codes: through the word, in its apparent simplicity, where order and disorder, simplicity and complexity are hidden and manifest at the same time, leaving the spectator with the task of read (and not reveal) a mystery made up of events and connections.
In the context of the exhibition, an immediate possibility of discussion and therefore transmission is built between work and spectator: I perceive, comment and move into the same and unique condition of space-time.
Cesare Fullone: He lives in Milan, where he obtained a diploma in Painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts. Among his personal exhibitions: On the Spraysages route, Rome; State of danger, Genoa; Deployments, Turin; Insomnia, Milan. Many of his participations in collective exhibitions, including the Open section of the Venice Biennale, Rome Quadrennial, Mart di Trento and Rovereto.
Cesare Pietroiusti: Artist and teacher, lives in Rome. Graduated in Medicine with a thesis in Psychiatric Clinic, he is co-founder of the Jartrakor Study Center, Rome (1977) and of the Journal of Psychology of Art (1979). He is a professor of Visual Arts Laboratory at IUAV, Venice (2004-) and MFA Faculty at LUCAD (Lesley University, Boston, 2009-).
The exhibition is presented on the occasion of FestivalFilosofia 2025.
Press Kit: link
Un Manifesto senza Dimensioni
From September 19 to December 14, 2025
Metronom, Via Carteria 10 | 41121 Modena
Il sesso nelle camere d’albergo features a compelling selection of works by artists Bruno Cattani, Kamilia Kard, Lisa Kereszi, Marco Signorini, and Attilio Solzi.
The title draws inspiration from Geoff Dyer’s book Otherwise Known as the Human Condition. Selected Essays and Reviews, a collection of essays published in Italian by Einaudi under the evocative title Il sesso nelle camere d’albergo.
The exhibition brings together diverse artistic voices, each interrogating the human body and its representations through distinct lenses. Bruno Cattani elevates the forms of the body through photography of sculptural works, seeking a sublimated beauty rooted in memory and form. Kamilia Kard reclaims the primal and sensual aspects of the female body, challenging contemporary portrayals and emphasizing a raw, visceral connection to identity. Lisa Kereszi documents the seductive magnetism of New Burlesque performances over six years, weaving a narrative of fantasy, freedom, and spectacle. Marco Signorini employs a playful approach, using digital manipulation to reconfigure images of the nude body—transforming them into abstracted forms and new visual languages. Attilio Solzi intertwines words and performance, creating introspective narratives where tattooed, nude, or semi-nude bodies interact with graffiti-covered environments, exploring the relationship between the physical and the symbolic.
Bruno Cattani (Reggio Emilia, 1964) began his photographic journey in 1982 and has been a photojournalist since 1988. His work centers on memory as a voyage through recollection—through faces, objects, and places. Among his notable projects is Eros, dedicated to the corporeal forms within sculpture. Cattani’s work has been exhibited at prestigious venues such as the Musée du Louvre, Musée Rodin, and Mois de la Photo in Paris, as well as the Galleria Civica di Modena and the Fondazione Pistoletto in Biella.
Kamilia Kard (Milan, 1981) is an artist, researcher, and educator. After earning a degree in Political Economy, she obtained a three-year diploma in Painting and a Master’s in Net Art from the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan. Her practice focuses on constructing identity in the digital age, transforming static or animated images into GIFs, websites, prints, videos, and installations. Her work has been exhibited at venues including Careof Milan, Galerie Odile Ouizeman in Paris, the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, IMAL in Brussels, and La Triennale di Milano.
Lisa Kereszi (Pennsylvania, 1973) holds an MFA from Yale University. In the late 1990s, she worked as an assistant to Nan Goldin in New York. Kereszi’s photography critically explores worlds of recreation and escapism—amusement parks, cinemas, bars, strip clubs, and arcades—spaces that transport us into realms of fantasy. Her recent exhibitions include Mother at the Tephra Institute of Contemporary Art (2022), Photobook Exhibition at the Benaki Museum during Athens Photo Festival (2022), and OUTS at Filter Photo Space in Chicago (2022).
Marco Signorini (Florence, 1962) lives and works in Florence. He is a professor of photography at the Brera and Carrara Academies. With a background in scenography, he developed an interest in video and photography, focusing on Italian landscape photography. His works have been exhibited internationally at the Winterthur Fotomuseum, SK Stiftung Kultur in Cologne.
Attilio Solzi (Soresina, 1962) has an approach to photography of a conceptual nature, always starting from social and daily contexts, a research on how to interpret the real and contemporary. The main focus of his work is the image of the body and its representation. Solzi prefers the book form for the realization of his projects. Recent publications include: Verbum, 89books (2022), The Last Summer, Salt n Pepper Press (2021).
Press Kit:link
Il sesso nelle camere d’albergo
From 16 dicembre 2023 to 15 marzo 2024
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Il paradosso di tenere mentre si dà is a dual solo exhibition featuring the works of artists Mariella Bettineschi and Yelena Yemchuk. The exhibition presents a curated selection of pieces—both photographs and paintings—drawn from various projects by the two artists.
Although Bettineschi and Yemchuk come from different generations and have distinct artistic backgrounds, they are united by a deeply feminist practice and a profoundly personal approach that infuses their work. Their practices explore themes of memory, identity, and the act of giving through a lens that is both intimate and reflective.
Bettineschi’s work is characterized by a process of reinterpretation and rewriting. Her practice involves a continuous dialogue with her images—photographs that are printed, altered through material interventions such as the addition of pearls or fabrics, and then re-photographed. This layered process creates complex works that embody her ongoing reflections and lived experiences, offering a textured visual narrative that is as much about the act of creation as about the final image.
Yelena Yemchuk’s oeuvre presents a portrayal of female figures that deliberately distances itself from contemporary stereotypes. Her subjects are complex, imperfect yet captivating women—figures that command attention and challenge superficial representations. Yemchuk’s images evoke a sense of depth and authenticity, inviting viewers to engage with the nuanced realities of her subjects.
The title, Il paradosso di tenere mentre si dà, references the subtitle of an anthropological book by Annette B. Weiner, which discusses indigenous objects capable of retaining the spiritual essence of their givers. In this context, the exhibition becomes a journey into the personal and collective imaginaries of the artists, where their experiences and memories are offered as gifts to the viewer. It opens a space for contemplating contemporary art as a form of intangible giving—an act of sharing the very essence of the artist’s inner world.
Mariella Bettineschi was born in Brescia in 1948. She graduated from the Giacomo Carrara Academy of Fine Arts in Bergamo in 1970. Her work has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions in public and private spaces, including L’era successiva e altri racconti at z2o Sara Zanin Gallery (2023), Notturno Più at the Venice Biennale (2019), and Da Duchamp a Cattelan: Arte Contemporanea al Palatino in Rome (2017).
Yelena Yemchuk lives and works in New York. Born in Kyiv (Ukraine) in 1970, she moved to the United States at age eleven. She studied Visual Arts at Parsons School of Design and later Photography at the Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. Yemchuk has collaborated as a fashion photographer with publications such as Vogue, Dazed & Confused, AnOther, Numéro, TAR Magazine, and The New Yorker. Her exhibitions include Gidropark at Gitterman Gallery, New York (2011); Ten Years After at the Sandretto Re Rebaudengo Foundation, Turin (2006); Sensitive at the Dactu Foundation, New York (2004); and No Vacancy at Eastwick Gallery, Chicago (2001).
Press kit: link
Il paradosso di tenere mentre si dà
From May 16 to September 17, 2023
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Inaugurating the solo exhibition Lo strano ordine delle cose by Taisuke Koyama, hosted at the Metronom space. For this occasion, a comprehensive exhibition project has been conceived, featuring a selection of the artist’s works: ten photographic prints of varying sizes and techniques, drawn from the series Rainbow Waves (2013), Revive (2019), and Interface (2019). These works serve as a survey of Koyama’s artistic trajectory and research.
Titled Lo strano ordine delle cose, referencing Antonio Damasio’s eponymous book, the exhibition explores an inquiry into photographic imagery through an unconventional perspective and analytical approach. This distinctive methodology positions Koyama’s language within the contemporary landscape as a precursor to critical themes emerging in the digital transformation of photography. The exhibited works are the culmination of years of experimentation, during which the artist employs abstraction to analyze and deconstruct images—paralleling how scientists examine cellular units under a microscope.The fundamental elements of photography—the capture process, pixels, manipulation, printing—become sites where this scientific investigation challenges traditional notions of image production and consumption.
Born in Tokyo in 1978, Taisuke Koyama lives and works in Tokyo. With a background in biology, he has dedicated himself to photography since 2003, focusing on both physical and digital explorations of image-making.For Koyama, photography is an enhanced form of representation—a powerful lens through which observation is conducted and guided. His work has been featured in numerous solo exhibitions, including Interface at Yuracho, Tokyo (2021); Phase Trans at G/P Gallery, Tokyo (2018); and Sensor_Code at Seen Fifteen Gallery, London (2018).
Lo strano ordine delle cose
From December 20th to February 19th
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
The Absence is a photographic project created by Attilio Solzi over the course of a year. For 365 days, the artist documented daily a specific spot in the province of Cremona where prostitution activities took place. The subject of these images is an empty chair: its shifting position and the changing vegetation surrounding it serve as markers of time.
The absence captured by Solzi, executed with awareness and technical precision, offers a visual reflection of what we cannot or choose not to see. Through The Absence, our gaze is subtly guided—if not compelled—to confront this hidden reality: the chair becomes a silent witness to individuals on society’s margins, driven by illegality and clandestinity, persons lacking any form of protection.
With his intimate and attentive perspective, Attilio Solzi documents these realities and their inhabitants. A silent sequence unfolds that profoundly disturbs and moves the viewer.
Attilio Solzi (Soresina, 1962), is an Italian artist whose practice is focused on photography and on the different representations of the body, preferring a grotesque and playful gaze. Solzi uses monstly the book form for the realization of his projects: between 2022 and 2016 he publishes with many publishing houses like 89 books, Everyedition, Salt n Pepper, Paranoia, Studio Bibliografico L’Argentario, Samopal Books, Les Crocs Electrique, Void. The Absence book won the Premio Marco Bastianelli for the best photographic book published in 2021.
The exibition is presented on the conjunction with FestivalFilosofia2022.
The Absence
From 16 September to 28 October 2022
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Structure of a Flow is a two-person exhibition featuring artists Kenta Cobayashi and Hiva Alizadeh, whose artistic practices span photography, painting, and installation. Despite differing backgrounds and trajectories, both artists share a common interest in reinterpreting traditional techniques from their respective countries of origin through a contemporary lens.
Their work is characterized by layered forms and vibrant color compositions, where painting techniques serve as a foundational element. While rooted in distinct cultural contexts—Japan and Iran—their practices reveal convergences in approach: a dialogue with traditional narratives and artisanal methods, and a simultaneous engagement with the tools and possibilities offered by the digital present. Experimentation, in their case, is not an end in itself but a coherent means to articulate a personal vision and conceptual rigor.
Kenta Cobayashi (Kanagawa, JP, 1992) lives and works in Tokyo. His practice centers on photography, video, and virtual reality, exploring a digital aesthetic in which the pixel and its manipulation play a pivotal role. In recent years, he has presented solo exhibitions such as Live in Fluctuations, Little Big Man Gallery, Los Angeles (2020); CALENDAR, People, Tokyo (2020); and Photographic Universe, Fotografia Europea, Reggio Emilia (2019).
Hiva Alizadeh (Kerman, IR, 1989) lives and works in Tehran. He began his career writing and directing experimental films and documentaries before shifting his focus to sculpture and installation. Drawing inspiration from the decorative traditions of Persian carpet weaving, he combines new media with ancestral craft. His work has been featured in both solo and group exhibitions including If Walls Could Talk, The Flat – Massimo Carasi, Milan (2022); The Flat/Sarahcrown booth, UNTITLED ART, Miami Beach, USA (2021); and Stranger in Town, Kristin Hjellegjerde Gallery, Berlin (2019).
Press Kit:link
Structure of a Flow
April 6 – July 22, 2022
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Minimi Naturali is a two-person exhibition featuring artists Andrea Pertoldeo and Marit Wolters.
The concept of Minimi naturali, drawing from Aristotle’s philosophy, refers to “the smallest parts into which a substance can be divided without losing its essential character.” Aristotle rejects the concept of the void, advocating instead for a continuous space-time that renders any object occupying a certain volume theoretically infinitely divisible. The Minimi naturali are what “remains” of this division, preserving the essential qualities of a substance. Through their use of different media, namely photography and sculpture, Pertoldeo and Wolters engage in a search for reduction to essence and spatial-temporal continuity.
The works of both artists—a concise and completed photographic series, Il Roseto, and a series of acrylic sculptures, Seamless—invite a subtle, allusive recognition. Viewers find themselves immersed and, at times, distractedly lost within a perimeter—the exhibition space—that, through these works, which serve as prime examples of the “natural minimum,” directs the gaze without constraining or limiting the space of possibility.
Andrea Pertoldeo (Udine, 1971) is a photographer and professor of photography at the Iuav University of Venice, and co-founder, with Stefano Graziani, of the Iuav Master’s program in Photography. He has participated in numerous exhibitions and research projects focused on contemporary landscape photography and has published photographic works in various international books and journals.
Marit Wolters (Achim, Germany, 1985) lives and works in Vienna. Her practice primarily revolves around sculpture and installation, with a focus on the physical and architectural context of the exhibition space. Notable solo exhibitions include Everything That Is Solid Dissolves Into Air, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York (2018); Stranger Being, Whitedwarf, Vienna (2018); and That’s Somehow Greek To Me, Oktogon, Dresden (2016).
Minimi Naturali
October 27 – December 22, 2021
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Del resto i costumi cambieranno molto, is a group exhibition featuring Annabel Elgar, Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi, and Eeva Hannula.
The exhibition offers an invitation to move, relying on the pleasure of the eyes and objects that, in their magical transformation, change function. Annabel Elgar repurposes embroidery canvases, turning them into backgrounds for her staged constructions. In line with her handcrafted approach to creating objects and scenographic elements, the drawing style in this new series of works is defined through cross-stitch. Always balancing between recognition and imagination, Elgar’s scenes—though stripped of the photographic magic in this particular work—find an essential, unsettling, and mysterious narrative dimension, which remains equally seductive.
Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi is a collector of relics—relics of photography, as he calls them. In his meditative—and obsessive—wandering, he collects objects which then become subjects of his photographs. Flight Formation is a composition of spent bullet casings, relics of hunting activities. Without altering the state of the objects in their photographic reproduction, Gandolfi leaves the composition exposed and impeccable: rows of casings, chromatically aligned, seemingly propelled from the wool and metal cage that the artist has placed them in. The flame, the explosion, the violent gesture slip into a level of abstraction that captures the gaze and invites the viewer to touch the surface, as if it were the skin of an animal.
Eeva Hannula’s State of Uncertainty is an attempt to stretch the everyday dimension of things, objects, and alter their meaning. Through a layered process that blends post-production, the use of prisms, and binocular lenses, Hannula’s images become like poems that give voice to experiences in ways that ordinary language cannot express. This uncertain territory, between what is said and unsaid, between fact and fiction, is open to the spectator’s playful mix and match, caught in a polarity between the ordinary, the familiar, and the unsettling.
The artistic works of Elgar, Hannula, and Gandolfi present inanimate objects deliberately presented as animated, within a dissonant and conflicting dimension that cannot leave one indifferent—an inexplicable privilege of certain works that manage to become what they are.
Annabel Elgar (1971) lives and works in London. She holds a Master of Arts in Photography from the Royal College of Art. Recent exhibitions include NUCLEUS – Imagining Science, Noorderlicht Photofestival, Netherlands (2017); Photography is Magic, Aperture Foundation, New York (2016); Setting Out, apexart, New York (2016); Contemporary Photography in North-Western Europe, Fondazione Fotografia, Modena (2015).
Niccolò Morgan Gandolfi (Washington D.C., USA, 1983) lives and works in Italy. After attending the Riccardo Bauer Photography School in Milan, he graduated in Visual Arts and Performing Arts from the IUAV University of Venice. In 2010, he lived in Los Angeles, where he developed a photographic research project on the urban nature of the city, recently published by Metropolis Books. He occasionally works as an architectural photographer and has collaborated with various editorial outlets, including Domus and Casabella.
Eeva Hannula (Helsinki, FI, 1983) lives and works in Helsinki. After earning a Bachelor’s degree in Aesthetics from the University of Helsinki and a Bachelor’s degree in Photography from the Aalto University School of Art and Design, Hannula completed a Master’s in Creative Writing at the Critical Academy of Helsinki in 2020. Her works are part of private collections in France, Finland, and Switzerland.
Del resto i costumi cambieranno molto
Metronom, Via Carteria 10 / 41121 Modena
June 24 – September 2021
Nature in Play is a group exhibition featuring works by artists who reflect on the possibilities of representing nature and landscape through photography. The works display a renewed impulse in photography to observe nature, blending references to pop culture with pure atmospheres. Stripped of any pretentiousness or excessive picturesque qualities, the photographic gaze returns to the beauty of nature with a fresh, thoughtful approach.
Andrea Pertoldeo (Udine, 1971) presents portions of the natural landscape as if we were walking together, offering a way to experience nature that becomes a visual pleasure and, consequently, a physical pleasure.
The two works by Daniele Marzorati (Cantù, 1988) present two different ways of narrating the landscape, leaving the viewer free to insert themselves into the narrative and become its protagonist.
Elena Aya Bundurakis (Crete, 1988) guides the viewer almost by hand to touch the most intimate parts of living beings.
Martina della Valle (Florence, 1981) creates vegetal architectures that reflect on the peripheral areas of urban greenery: the artist proposes a new way of looking at the city’s nature, searching for what normally goes unnoticed.
Mark Dorf (Laconia, USA, 1988) explores the interactions between society, the digital domain, and nature: focusing on the landscape as a habitable and familiar place, the artist analyzes the numerical translation offered by digital observers, proposing new visions yet to be discovered.
Like in a laboratory, Sanna Kannisto (Hämeenlinna, Finland, 1974) presents a scientific visualization of nature and its inhabitants while also setting up a theatrical stage where the protagonists are birds and plants from the Finnish landscape, her homeland.
Marco Signorini (Florence, 1962) weaves a narrative of the landscape through elements borrowed from digital language.
In the work of Christto & Andrew (Christto Sanz, Puerto Rico 1985 – Andrew Weir, South Africa, 1987), nature is shown in a future projection where vegetal elements are irreparably marked by traces of human society.
Nature is also the protagonist in the work of Tilo & Toni (artistic duo founded in 2015 in Siegen, Germany), showing all its power and vitality: recovering typical canons of German Romanticism, the artists reinterpret the relationship between man and nature in a contemporary key.
Andrea Botto (Rapallo, 1973) photographs fragments of nature exploded into a rarefied, almost intangible environment.
The practice of Olaf Breuning (Schaffhausen, Switzerland, 1970) shows us how the relationship between man and nature is metaphorical: what they have in common is also what distinguishes them, and vice versa.
Nature in Play
March 7 – July 29, 2020
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Metronom presents Dump!, a solo exhibition by Thomas Kuijpers (1985, Helmond, Netherlands), curated by Gabriele Tosi.
Thomas Kuijpers is known for collecting, manipulating, and presenting a vast amount of images and visual information. His projects, which hybridize installation with photography and video, create expansive, compressed, and layered scenarios where one can observe the specific emotional state of the image and the media.
With Dump!, the exhibition narrative strips away soft and immediate connections, in search of a detachment in visual perception. The installation is sparse and monumental, with an immediately noticeable and striking gap, purposefully seeking, more or less consciously, a reaction and engagement from the viewer in questioning images and symbols—even within the context of a contemporary art exhibition.
For the exhibition, a limited edition has been produced, which includes a transcription of the sound piece That’s Delirious (2019) and a conversation between the artist and the curator, recorded during the exhibition’s conceptualization. This conversation addresses the issues raised by each of the works and the underlying thread that gives coherence to the curatorial path.
Thomas Kuijpers (Netherlands, 1985, currently based in Ghent, Belgium) explores the roles of contemporary media storytelling within our perception of the current world, with a particular interest in the representation and communication of the concept of truth. He has presented his work at international institutions such as Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt (2018); Fotomuseum Winterthur, Winterthur (2018); Foam Museum, Amsterdam (2017); Museum Arnhem, Arnhem (2016).
The exhibition is presented as part of FestivalFilosofia 2020.
Dump!
from 18th September to 31 October 2020
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
In the Woods the Waterfall is Rushing is the first solo exhibition in Italy by the duo TILO & TONI.
On this occasion, the artists present their latest series Im Walde rauscht der Wasserfall, which consists of unique baryta prints created using an experimental mix of techniques, involving the artists’ direct intervention in the darkroom.
With a deep focus on manual gesture and interaction with materials, TILO & TONI blend and appropriate photographs, drawings, and objects of various kinds, recombining them into images and photographic collages through analog techniques. While not following a precise thematic line, the artists evoke, starting from the title of the series, the typical imagery of the Romantic era, proposing a reflection on nature and the process of image-making.
TILO&TONI is an artistic duo founded in 2015 in Siegen in Germany. After
studying Sculpture, Painting, Photography and Graphics at the University
of Siegen, both members graduated at Gerrit Rietveld Academie in Amsterdam. TILO & TONI’s work has been selected for international group exhibitions, such as: Steenbergen Stipendium, Nederlands Fotomuseum, Rotterdam (NL) 2017
In the Woods the Waterfall is Rushing
March 2 – May 11, 2019
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Waves and Particles is the solo exhibition of Taisuke Koyama, featuring a selection of works by the Japanese artist, specifically arranged as a site-specific installation. The works result from his research into the behavior of light and color, bridging natural phenomena and digital environments. The two words in the title, “waves” and “particles,” reflect the dual nature of light, perfectly capturing its essence and chemical properties.
With a background in biology and environmental studies, Koyama began his exploration of digitized photographic media. His experimentation goes beyond just image generation; through a consistent and rigorous project, he expands into formal rendering, merging scientific inquiry with artistic expression.
Taisuke Koyama (Tokyo, 1978) lives and works in Tokyo.
After graduating in biology, he has dedicated himself to photography since 2003. His solo and duo exhibitions include Seen Fifteen, London (2018); Daiwa Foundation Japan House Gallery, London (2016); Sunday Gallery, Zurich (2015); and Hasselblad Japan Gallery, Tokyo (2013). He has participated in several group exhibitions, such as Moving the Image: Photography and Its Actions, Camberwell Space, London (2019); Illuminating Graphics, Creation Gallery G8, Tokyo (2019).
Waves and Particles
May 31 – July 27, 2019
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Don’t Make Them Tell You Where They Come From curated by Gabriele Tosi, Don’t Make Them Tell You Where They Come From is a group exhibition featuring the works of Daniele Marzorati, Marco B. Fontichiari, Gli Impresari (Edoardo Aruta, Marco Di Giuseppe, Rosario Sorbello), and Marit Wolters.
The exhibition brings together works by young artists who share an analytical and philological approach to exploring the relationship between artwork, image, and reality. The works on display, spanning media such as sculpture and photography, seem to construct and traverse a territory of exchange, with space and time dictated by the movement itself. The medium itself, serving as a repository of modern collective memory, allows the artist to instill in the work (which becomes both the medium and the field of action) the necessity for a renewed inquiry into the visual. Beginning with the latent memory of the media, a process is triggered that allows the viewer to understand the image conveyed by the work for what it truly is, as the artist erases the possibility of perceiving it for what we think it might be.
Marco B. Fontichiari (Deer Park, California, 1992. Lives in Bologna) works primarily with video and performance, developing a research practice that explores the capacity of humans and their tools to channel abstract content into a finite plane. Recent exhibitions include Lost in Translation (Pop Corn), Localedue, Bologna (2018); Athanasius Kircher, Porto dell’Arte, Bologna (2018).
Gli Impresari (Edoardo Aruta, Marco Di Giuseppe, Rosario Sorbello) have worked as a collective since 2014. Their focus has always been on the techniques and devices that generate spectacle. Their work appears in the form of sculpture and installation or is activated performatively. They have participated in festivals and exhibitions such as Helicotrema 8 Recorded Audio Festival, Palazzo Grassi and Teatrino di Palazzo Grassi, Venice (2019).
Daniele Marzorati (Cantù, 1988. Lives in Milan) works with various mediums such as photography, painting, and drawing, focusing on the revelatory logics generated by the passage of an image between different media. His recent solo exhibitions include Deplacement, Building, Milan (2019); Crossing Line, San Paolo Invest, Monza (2019); In Linea D’Aria, oTTo Space, Milan (2017).
Marit Wolters (Achim, Germany, 1985. Lives in Vienna) primarily works with sculpture and installation, focusing her intervention on the physical and architectural context of the space where she exhibits. Notable solo shows include Everything That Is Solid Dissolves Into Air, Austrian Cultural Forum, New York (2018); Stranger Being, Whitedwarf, Vienna (2018).
Don’t Make Them Tell You Where They Come From
December 1, 2019 – February 8, 2020
Metronom, Via Carteria 10, 41121 Modena
Antropotecniche is a group exhibition featuring Elena Aya Bundurakis, Christto & Andrew, Alix Desaubliaux, Kamilia Kard, Simone Schiesari
Curated by Gabriele Tosi
Metronom presents the group exhibition Antropotecniche, featuring the works of Elena Aya Bundurakis, Christto & Andrew, Alix Desaubliaux, Kamilia Kard, and Simone Schiesari. With a theoretical reference to the studies of German philosopher Peter Sloterdijk, the exhibition delves into the complex concept of anthropotechnics, understood here as the action of man upon himself. The artists confront the themes of representation and construction of the body and figure, addressing the complex and layered concept of the “persona.”
The works on display—spanning from photography to video games, sculpture to 3D printing—invite viewers to reflect on the redefinition of bodily representation and self-representation in the digital age. The exhibition explores the relationship between humans and their potential “technological construction,” questioning the boundaries and possibilities of identity in the media-driven era.
Elena Aya Bundurakis (Crete, 1988) is a Greek-Japanese artist who lives between Athens and Antwerp. A graduate in photography from the Royal Academy of Fine Arts in Antwerp, her work combines photography, drawing, video, and haiku poetry. Recent exhibitions include Hate Speech, Aggression und Intimitat, Km Kunstlerhaus, Graz (2019), and Currents #6: Good Intentions, Marres Maastricht (2019).
Christto & Andrew, a duo consisting of Christto Sanz (Puerto Rico, 1985) and Andrew Weir (South Africa, 1987), live and work in Doha, Qatar. Their work includes photography, video, and mixed media, exploring social identities and the reinterpretation of history. They have exhibited in important shows such as Zeitgenossische Kunst Katar, Kraftwerk Berlin (2017) and Politics of Sports, Unseen Amsterdam (2016).
Alix Desaubliaux (Nancy, 1993) is an artist-researcher who works with 3D printing, ceramics, electronics, and video games. She currently holds a research position at the digital research unit of ENSBA in Lyon. Recent exhibitions include Paidia, Galerie du Pavillon, Pantin (2018), and Ice-Golem & Cute-Kitten, Barcraft, Nancy (2017).
Kamilia Kard (Milan, 1981) is an artist, curator, and educator who focuses on identity in the Internet age and the construction of digital imagery. She has exhibited in prestigious venues such as the Victoria and Albert Museum in London, IMAL in Brussels, and Fotomuseum in Winterthur.
Simone Schiesari (Rovigo, 1974) is a photographer who has explored the representation of physiognomy and human nature, with a particular focus on their interaction with the artificial world. Recent exhibitions include Prototipi, Baco Arte Contemporanea, Bergamo (2018) and Ritratti di giovani uomini e giovani donne, Fotografia Europea, Reggio Emilia (2017).
Antropotecniche is presented in conjunction with FestivalFilosofia 2019.
Antropotecniche
From September 13 to November 16, 2019
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Metronom inaugurates its new exhibition space with the group show From My Point of View, featuring works by Olaf Breuning, Kenta Cobayashi, Mark Dorf, and Thomas Kuijpers.
From My Point of View presents the research of four artists who, in different ways, reflect on and explore the possibilities for contemporary artists to interpret their own ‘role.’
Since February, with the opening of its new space in the historic center of Modena, Metronom has expanded its activities: alongside its exhibition program, it will also focus on editorial projects, supporting its commitment to promoting contemporary art.
Olaf Breuning (Switzerland, 1970) lives between New York and Zurich.
After exhibiting at important international institutions, in 2016 he had a retrospective at the NRW-Forum in Düsseldorf. His solo exhibitions have been held at Palais de Tokyo, Paris (2011); Kunsthall Stavanger, Norway (2015); Paul Klee Museum, Bern (2013). Public art projects commissioned by the Public Art Fund include “Clouds” at Doris C. Freedman Plaza, Central Park (New York) and “Lightness of Being” at City Hall Park, New York.
Kenta Cobayashi (Japan, 1992) lives in Shibuya, Tokyo.
After studying at Tokyo Zokei University, he has held solo exhibitions at G/P Gallery (Tokyo, 2017 and 2016). His work has been included in major group exhibitions such as GIVE ME YESTERDAY at Fondazione Prada (Milan, 2016); New Rube Goldberg Machine at KAYOKO YUKI·KOMAGOME SOKO (Tokyo, 2016); and New Material at Casemore Kirkeby (San Francisco, 2016).
Mark Dorf (New York, 1988) lives in Brooklyn, NY.
Mark Dorf’s practice involves photography, digital media, and sculpture, used in a hybrid manner. Interested in scientific research and technological development, Dorf analyzes the ‘Information Age’ in a lucid and accurate way, aiming to understand the relationship between humans and their surrounding environment. He was selected as a FOAM Talent in 2017. He has exhibited at international institutions such as IFP Media Center, New York (2017); Postmasters Gallery, New York (2017 and 2015).
Thomas Kuijpers (Netherlands, 1985) lives in Ghent, Belgium.
Kuijpers explores the roles of contemporary media narratives within our perception of the current world, with a particular focus on the representation and communication of the concept of truth. He has presented his work at international institutions such as MASP, São Paulo (2013), Kunsthal, Rotterdam (2011), Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam (2014), Foam Museum, Amsterdam (2015 and 2017), and Museum Arnhem, Netherlands (2016).
From My Point of View
February 27 – April 22, 2018 // extended until May 5, 2018
Metronom,Via Carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Encrypted Purgatory is the new body of work presented by Christto & Andrew in their eponymous solo exhibition.
The works in this series, which include installations, photography, and mixed media, are striking for their disorienting nature. With their choice of visionary subjects, vibrant colors, and environments and objects inspired by a chimerical scenario, they create an unsettling atmosphere. Christto & Andrew’s work poetically evokes concerns about a future increasingly dominated by technology, where humanity—in its most dehumanized version—is entirely controlled by an artificial mind. As in an ‘encrypted purgatory,’ the visitor finds themselves disoriented, suspended in a time that can only be vaguely imagined, with access codes that one may try to write, but which are uncertain in unlocking doors of understanding—and control—of reality.
Encrypted Purgatory was previewed at the latest edition of Les Rencontres de la Photographie in Arles, where Christto & Andrew were selected as finalists for the New Discovery Award, a program dedicated to showcasing the work of the most talented and emerging international artists.
Encrypted Purgatory
October 27, 2018 – January 26, 2019
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
The Dust in my Pocket is the solo exhibition by Annabel Elgar, which gathers a selection of recent works from the series Cheating the Moon and the unpublished series Noon in the Desert.
The theme of truth in photography is one that constantly shifts and redefines itself, following the development and history of photography. Today, it is more than ever juxtaposed with concepts like originality and memory. The dust in my pocket is a thin veil, a persistent trace that is simultaneously elusive. It is this very element that Annabel Elgar engages with, often both dialoguing and pillaging it, returning a picture that is even more complex than the original. The clues, documents, and objects Elgar presents in her images are the result of a meticulous investigative process and reconstruction, yet they maintain a disturbing and ambiguous quality that both attracts and intrigues. Is truth, itself, perhaps an enigma?
Annabel Elgar (1971) lives and works in London.
She holds a Master of Arts in Photography from the Royal College of Art, and her work has appeared in numerous international exhibitions and publications. Recent exhibitions include NUCLEUS – Imagining Science, Noorderlicht Photofestival, Netherlands (2017); Photography is Magic, Aperture Foundation, New York (2016); Setting Out, apexart, New York (2016); Contemporary Photography in Northwestern Europe, Fondazione Fotografia, Modena (2015).
The exhibition is presented in conjunction with FestivalFilosofia 2018.
The Dust in my Pocket
Metronom, Via Carteria 10, 41121, Modena
A Song System, the solo exhibition by Sanna Kannisto, is set in the new spaces of Metronom. Curated by Chiara Bardelli Nonino, the exhibition presents a selection of recent and unpublished works by Kannisto from the series Local Vernacular, Act of Flying, and Days of Departure.
Like a celestial globe, the exhibition aims to draw constellations to be used as maps for navigating the universe of the Finnish photographer, where the immense biodiversity of the tropical forest and the minimalism of the Scandinavian landscape coexist. This universe also merges the rigor of scientific procedures with the absolute freedom of art, the stillness of the photographic image with the tension of the animals captured in all their vitality.
The title of the exhibition refers to a specific series of brain structures that regulate the ability of songbirds to learn to communicate. These structures find unexpected analogies with very few other animal species—humans included.
Sanna Kannisto (Finland, 1974) lives and works in Helsinki. Kannisto’s works have been exhibited in some of the most prestigious international art institutions. In 2011, the Aperture Foundation in New York published Fieldwork, a monograph dedicated to her work, with an essay by Steve Baker.
Chiara Bardelli Nonino (1985) has been the Photo Editor of Vogue Italia since 2012. She has collaborated with Flash Art Italia and The British Journal of Photography, and her research focuses primarily on contemporary photography, contributing to independent curatorial and editorial projects.
A Song System
May 30 to July 21, 2018
Metronom, Via Carteria 10, 41121, Modena
MO’DINNA MO’DINNA (I wanna go back home) is the evocative title of a work that questions the notion of place through photography and the practice of travel. Antonio Rovaldi constructs a visual and mental narrative that begins with the Emilian topos of the Via Emilia, evoking the visual and narrative legacy of two foundational figures in the Italian landscape imagination: Gianni Celati and Luigi Ghirri. Their poetics—rooted in minimal drifts, peripheral visions, and attention to the ordinary—resonates in Rovaldi’s project like a basso continuo, guiding both gesture and itinerary.
In 2016, invited by the Fotografia Europea festival, Rovaldi accepted the challenge of exploring the Po Valley landscape along the Via Emilia, focusing on the Parma-Modena stretch. But the journey does not unfold linearly. At the time living in the United States, the artist chose to reverse the direction: he began in the American Modena, an unusual namesake located in Utah, and only later arrived at the Emilian Modena. The distance between these two cities—geographically far apart but linked by a curious toponymic overlap—becomes a narrative device, an interplay of real and imagined coordinates, linguistic and biographical sedimentations.
The name “Mo’dinna,” a phonetic distortion of Modena in the American accent, activates a linguistic short-circuit that opens the way to reflections on diasporic identity, migratory heritage, and the landscape as a mirror of memory. Rovaldi physically traverses places, but what he documents is never mere testimony. His exploration feeds on uncertainty, drifts, and fragments: among local legends (a Chinese cook shouting a call, a migrant worker renaming his construction site), and abandoned geographies now resembling ghost towns, space transforms into a text to be read and rewritten.
The photographic corpus—sixty black-and-white shots arranged in a strict sequence—unfolds like a visual score, accompanied by a sound track that expands its atmosphere. This is not mere representation, but an attempt to relate to what appears: a “closeness” that takes form. Rovaldi does not photograph the landscape; he listens to it, crosses it, inhabits it. His images do not illustrate: they evoke, capturing the slippage between the visible and the imagined, between belonging and distance.
Antonio Rovaldi (Parma, 1975) lives and works in Milan. He graduated in 2000 in Art and Photography at NABA in Milan, where he studied under artists such as Hidetoshi Nagasawa and Mario Cresci. His practice investigates the perception of landscape through photography, video, sculpture, and sound installation. A recurring element in his research is the representation of distance—both physical and mental—between real and literary places, collective spaces, and autobiographical memories. In 2006, he won the New York Prize from Columbia University, and in 2009 he was an Artist in Residence at ISCP in Brooklyn. Since 2017, he has been developing the project ‘Cler’ in his Milan studio, hosting exhibitions with a particular focus on the relationship between photography, film, and sound.
Press Kit: link
MO’DINNA MO’DINNA (I wanna go back home)
From 17 dicembre 2024 to 21 febbraio 2025
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
Punto di Rottura is a duo exhibition featuring Eeva Hannula and Daniele Marzorati, showcasing a selection of the artists’ most recent works.
In archaeology, decay and conservation are not opposites, but interdependent forces acting upon matter in view of its survival. Even what conserves is subject to transformation: to preserve means, inevitably, to alter. The term “decay” suggests loss, but it actually describes a natural process—the physical mutation of objects over time. Human intervention—building, protecting, monumentalizing—is a symbolic response to passage, an attempt to give form to duration. In the context of contemporary art, these processes translate into practices that question matter and image as spaces of transition. The object is an affirmative force; the concept, what sediments and endures. Between these poles move Eeva Hannula and Daniele Marzorati, adopting strategies of recovery and reworking that reject historical linearity in favor of a visual and mental migration. Hannula creates photographic collages, sculptural elements, and visual poems that relate physical and digital traces, exploring the relationships between memory and image. Marzorati, in his Mare Desiderii series, takes the monument as a stereotypical form of collective memory and then disarticulates it through the passage between media—analog photography and drawing—producing not substitution, but multiplication. In both cases, it is in the shift, in the interstice between rupture and transformation, that a critical, poetic, and contemporary space opens up.
Eeva Hannula (Helsinki, 1983) graduated as a visual artist from the Turku Arts Academy in 2012 and completed her Master’s degree in Photography at Aalto University in 2017. She also studied Aesthetics and Literature at the University of Helsinki and Creative Writing at the Critical Academy in Finland. Her recent exhibitions include: The image was wide and it swayed towards, Forum Box Gallery, Helsinki, FI (2023); There is a possibility in this room to think of the edge and falling over it, Gallery Ratamo, Jyväskylä, FI (2021); These are gestures small scenes at hand, Gallery Rajatila, Tampere, FI (2021).
Daniele Marzorati (Cantù, 1988) graduated in 2007 and earned a Master’s degree in 2013 in Visual Arts and Curatorial Studies at NABA in Milan, where he currently teaches photography. His recent exhibitions include: Beginnings, Nonostante Marras, Milan, IT (2023); Déplacement, Building, Milan, IT (2019); Crossing Line, San Paolo Invest, Monza, IT (2019); In linea d’aria, oTTo Space, Milan, IT (2017).
Press Kit: link
Punto di rottura
From 14 maggio to 26 luglio 2024
Metronom, Via carteria 10, 41121, Modena
