Francesca Martí placing reeds from the Danube River on her Ma’at sculpture in mirror-polished and rough-cast aluminium (2017), with her Believers installation in the background (9 metre-long installation of 99 small sculptures in painted aluminium, 2017).
«The Transformation exhibition is the result of an evolution from 2000 to 2017, with dreams, working with passion and dedication, with satisfaction and only a very few disappointments. It is so emotional for me to see my art in this new monumental space. Some of these works, like my Fly series, have migrated to many countries – from Mallorca to Alexandria, Bonn, Brussels, Dubai, Madrid, Seoul, Torino, and now Bratislava, giving me some new reflections and answers, and showing me how well-connected my works can be in their own diversity.
Here at the Danubiana Museum, I can understand the dialogue between my different creative directions.
All this is what I want to share with you.
To love and to believe that what I do, every new step, brings me closer toward a new vision and to a new dream…»
Artist Francesca Martí, from her opening speech.
Installation view of Transformation retrospective exhibition, including Chaos (2017), Ma’at (2017), Planet of Fusions II (2017), Viktor’s Dream (2001), The Fly in the Pigment (2016), and Believers video animation (2017).
Exhibition: Francesca Martí – Transformation
Paintings, sculptures, drawings, photographs, video installations, and performance-based works from 1999-2017
November 25, 2017 through March 11, 2018
Curators: Pilar Ribal & Kees van Twist. Co-curator: Jonathan Turner
Creative Technical Support and Media Technology by Thomas Fuellengraben & deutschewerbewelt, Cologne, Germany
Supported by the Government of the Balearic Islands through the program Illenc, and the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovakia
Transport: Rotar Art Stortive, Ljubljana, Slovenia
Insurance: Aon Risk Solutions, Vienna, Austria
Catalogue: designed by hastalastantas, Palma & printed by Imprenta Bahia, Palma, Mallorca
Opening speeches by Director Vincent Polakovic, Gerard Meulensteen – founder of the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, exhibition curator Pilar Ribal, Ambassador of The Netherlands in Slovakia – His Excellency Mr. Hank van der Kwast, Ambassador of Spain in Slovakia – Excelentísimo Sr. Luis Belzuz de los Ríos, and the artist Francesca Martí.
The Fly in the pigment (2016), mixed media sculpture with red pigment, 120x100x100 cm and Viktor’s dream (2001),
12 photographs on aluminium on perspex, 100×120 cm each.
The Kiss II (2001), photograph on aluminium on perspex, 200×125 cm and Viktor’s dream (2001), 12 photographs on aluminium on perspex, 100×120 cm each.
Tears – Into the blue (2008), video projection on canvas, 200×125 cm, video duration: 2:54 minutes, and Dreamer – Antares (2015), blue painted aluminium, 92x73x104cm from the collection of Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, Bratislava (purchased in 2015).
Exhibition view of ground floor at the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, with Chaos (2017) and Planet of Fusions II (2017) installations made from recycled satellite dishes painted with automotive lacquer, photographs printed on zinc plate, video projections and tablets, and Ma’at sculpture (2017) in mirror-polished and rough-cast aluminium.
Installation view: Tears – Full Moon I & II (2009), photographs and paint on canvas, 200 x150 cm each, with The Wall (2016), serigraph monotypes, and photographs from the Flight performance (2017).
Migrant Angel (2016-2017), video performance by Icelandic vocalist Gunnlaug Thorvaldsdottir projected on a painted wall (duration: 10:13 minutes), plus three photographs printed on adhesive paper on recycled and painted satellite dishes, 80, 90 & 100 cm diameter each.
Curator Pilar Ribal, from her opening speech:
«As a little girl, and due to her circumstances, Francesca started very early to be creative, making her own toys and dresses. She spent many hours dreaming alone, inventing stories that became a reality over the years, as she explained to me when we were talking about her childhood, a time that wasn’t always easy. Later on, she began to study the fine arts. Working hard as always, she decided to become an artist, a painter who was inspired by her environment and her own observations.
The incidental falling of a common house fly into red pigment, while she was drawing on the table in her studio, guided her to seek out new technologies and stimulated the expansion of her previous paintings to the fusion of them with photography, performance and video. These techniques became precious tools in her hands, which brought life and movement to what were formerly static canvases. This is the starting point of Martí ‘s Transformation exhibition, which includes about 70 complex and multi-media works created over the past 17 years during a career that expands three decades.
Transformation introduces us to this global world defined by inter-connectivity and sophisticated communication devices. It explores some of the issues and goals that we humans have to face individually and collectively, such as migration and mass communication. It also shows the possibility for chaos and confusion, and just how quickly today’s news becomes contemporary history. Francesca continues to devote her creative energy to examine the different emotions, the ideas and the impulses that move us and help us to redefine our individual personalities and changing identities.
A key presence in this show is the sculpture of Ma’at, the Egyptian goddess of harmony, justice and equilibrium, who appears twice in these rooms. She closes the Transformation exhibition with a positive message: it is still possible to transform this world into a better place, and to transform our worries and difficulties into positive opportunities, as she, Francesca Martí, has always done in her life and throughout her artistic career.»
Exhibition photography by Johan Danielson (November 25, 2017)
left to right: co-curator Jonathan Turner, curator Pilar Ribal, Gunnar Dahl, Francesca Marti, and Spanish Ambassador to Slovakia, Excelentísimo Sr. Luis Belzuz de los Ríos with his wife Luisa.
Francesca Marti in a group photo at the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum, including (left to right) Ivan Levy, Gerhardt Braun (GB Gallery, Palma), Helen Cummins (ABC-Mallorca), Dutch curator Kees van Twist, Gerard & Riky Meulensteen (Founders of the Danubiana Meulensteen Art Museum), His Excellency Sr. D. Luis Belzuz de los Rios Ambassador of Spain to Slovakia & his wife Doña Luisa, Francesca Martí, curator Pilar Ribal, Professor Leonhard Oberascher, Maria Antonia & Marcelino Rullan, Mateo & Cristina Sastre, Maria Salas Za Forteza, Isabel Caballero, Pepa & Juan Nadal, and Björn Larsson Lindman.