SAINT-PIERRE-QUIBERON.- Cantiere 2 / Harbour sees Roberto Coda Zabetta move his studio in Bretagne to realise the massive public artwork on Portivy’s pier. This project is founded on the reciprocal relationship between painting, architecture, the natural environment and the landscape.

For millennia the force of the winds, of the tides, the erosion of the sea, the sun, the rain, the saltiness hit the coasts of the Quiberon peninsula that stretches in the Atlantic Ocean. Kilometres of coastline called Côte Sauvage are preserved under the Conservatoire du Littoral institution.

The strength, the intensity and the purity of this nature are the primordial elements that have inspired the artist; they are the themes on which his research has been focused on, for the last year.

Roberto Coda Zabetta is profoundly aware of the impossibility to stem these incontrollable elements and, for this, his work will only be created by relating its linguistic degree to the unpredictability of natural forces.

The material elements has always been at the center of the artist’s work, for over two years he has experimented with natural materials in his work.

Over and above natural pigments, he has confronted with organic materials such as ‘shit’ in collaboration with Museo della Merda (The Shit Museum, Castelbosco, PC) and with the use of oyster powder from Brittany in collaboration with Dennery Cyril.

The project in Portivy concerns the realisation of a great intervention in the port of the small town. The entirety of the area has been prepared with a detailed cleaning using a hydro-cleaner, afterwards, on the dam, on the wall and on the port drops, layers of ‘matter’ using natural pigments, oyster dust, fish glue and Airlite paint, the leading company in the production of paints and pigments at zero environmental impact.

On the first layer of white matter, additional pictorial layers will be applied with the use of an air compressor.

The sea and the time will dissolve this big ephemeral artwork, animated by the energy of nature and respectfully realised for its surrounding environment.

The entire structure and the degree abstraction which the artist has chosen to express himself with, creating a collision of feelings and intellect, aiming to produce a connection without continuity solutions between perception and thought, allowing the viewer to access a different dimension not governed by simple perspective in which we usually identify our relationship with the outside world.

The process of the work, like with Cantiere 1 / Terrazzo, will be documented by photographer and filmmaker Henrik Blomqvist, the production of the film is in collaboration with Black Mamba, the graphic design by Matteo Blandford. The film will have contributions by Patrizia Torricelli (DAIS - Environmental Science Department Ca’Foscari University, Venice), Martina Sabbadini (independent curator and researcher; collection and communication manager at Kadist), Massimo Torrigiani (Boiler Studio and Fantom Editions), Hervé Bourdon (Founder, owner and chef at Petit Hotel du Grand Large, Portivy) and Tiziano Vudafieri (Vudafieri Saverino Partners).

Cantiere 1 / Terrazzo in Naples saw the realisation of a large painting on the entirety of the roof surface of the SS. Trinità delle Monache complex, then Military Hospital of Naples. The project was promoted by the Council of Naples - Department of Culture and Tourism, in collaboration with the Department of Urban Studies and Cultural Heritage, URBACT and the Matronato of the Fondazione Donnaregina - MADRE, Naples.

Roberto Coda Zabetta (1975, Biella, IT) was the studio assistant for Aldo Mondino from 1995 to 2005. He lives and works in Milan.

His artwork have been showcased in galleries and national and international museum: Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Villa Croce, Genoa (2016); Fondazione Mudima, Milan (2015); Palazzo Barbarigo Minotto, Venice (2015); The Shit Museum, Piacenza (2015); MAC-Museum of contemporary art, Brasil (2012); Museo di Palazzo Reale, Milan (2010); Museo della Certosa, Capri (2011); Indonesian National Gallery, Jakarta (2009); The David Roberts Foundation, London (2008).

He collaborated for external projects for Madre Museum in Naples, the Teatro India in Rome, MAXXI - National museum of arts of the XXI century in Rome and the Triennale of Milan.

The artist has been selected for multiple awards among which some promoted by the Fondazione Michelangelo Pistoletto, Biella; Dena Foundation, Paris; BP Portrait Award National Portrait Gallery, London; XIV Quadriennale, Rome; P.S.I. Italian Bureau, New York; American Academy, Rome.