Nico Vascellari

The National Exemplar is pleased to announce its new exhibition by Nico Vascellari, 1/2.

A half is two equal or corresponding separate parts.

We could be split in half: Outside (eyes, ears, legs, arms, buttocks...) and Inside (lungs, testicles...). Almost perfection.

Two symmetrical halves makes something stronger, a nucleus, a whole, a family.

Connecting duality and opposites drives my work. Interiors and exteriors, darkness and light. The truth in contradiction.

Then I had twin sons. They are identical. Divided.

And now after having casted three parts of me (face/arm/leg), I’m writing this at the side of my mother in the hospital lying in bed unable to move half of her face, her right hand, and her right leg.

“...questo è il bene dell'essere dimezzato: il capire d'ogni persona e cosa al mondo la pena che ognuno e ognuna ha per la propria incompletezza.”

- Italo Calvino, Il Visconte Dimezzato.

"... this is the good of being halved: the understanding of every person and thing in the world the punishment that each and every one has for his own incompleteness."

- Italo Calvino, The Cloven Viscount.

Nico Vascellari was born in 1976 in Vittorio Veneto, Italy.

Among his most significant solo exhibitions: MAXXI | Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo, Rome (2018); Palais De Tokyo, Paris (2017); Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester (2016); Accademia di Francia - Villa Medici, Rome (2016); Estorick Collection, London (2016); National Gallery of Arts, Tirana (2015); Museion, Bolzano (2010); Museo MAN, Nuoro (2007); Skuc, Lubljana (2006); Viafarini, Milan (2006). He has also participated in the 52nd Venice Biennale (2007); Manifesta 7 (2008); 15th Quadriennale in Rome (2008); 12th Architecture Biennale in Venice (2010).

His work has been exhibited in prestigious Institutions such as: Museo del Novecento, Milan; Fondation Beyeler Basel; Riga Art Space, Riga; La Maison Rouge, Paris; MAK, Wien; Kunsthaus, Graz; SongEun Art Space, Seoul; ZKM, Karlsruhe; La Casa Encendida, Madrid; Espace de l'Art Concrete, Mouans-Sartoux; Palazzo Reale, Milan; Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Turin; CSW, Warsaw; PinchukArtCentre, Kiev; Le Magasin, Grenoble; Wysing Arts Centre, Cambridge; EACC, Castelló; MART, Rovereto; Museo Pecci, Prato; Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome; MAMBO, Bologna.

His work is in numerous public collections including: Deutsche Bank, Milan; Macro - Museo d'Arte Contemporanea Roma, Rome; MAXXI | Museo nazionale delle arti del XXI secolo Rome; Museion, Bolzano; Whitworth Art Gallery, Manchester; MMUSAC - Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León, Leon.