NEW YORK, NY.- Mike Weiss Gallery presents Fernando Mastrangelo's first solo show with the gallery; NOTHING. Strategically using materials for their aesthetic and historical senses and for their power to signify, the works in NOTHING ignore any bias regarding criss-crossing design and fine art as well as commodity and aesthetic functions. By casting his net widely, NOTHING uses pure form and symbolic meaning to transform commodity goods into sculptures and wall-hanging pieces referencing art and social histories, the seductive ideas of sacred geometry, and the roots of Existentialism.
Mastrangelo's work shares concepts from the Romantic era when allegorical landscapes pointed the viewer to a metaphysical unknown by sizing man against the unfiltered backdrop of raw and mysterious nature. These 19th century paintings planted the roots for Existentialism, and leave the viewer to question if the figure amongst the scenery in the painting is exhilarated, overwhelmed, calm, or in danger. Mastrangelo's works for NOTHING hold the same sense of discovery through the impossibility of each piece holding a singular meaning; a concept further developed by his chosen materials of salt, sand, and cement. When the materials are treated in direct contrast to their democratized place in our world, the effect connects the viewer with familiar substances in an alchemical appeal to our senses. NOTHING alludes to the endless possibilities of transformation in the common and everyday goods we have around us, providing hope for the possibility of aesthetic utility in what we overlook as banal. Each piece is informed by conscious choices that start with the artist's triangular thought process of finding content, seeking form, then materializing the result to fulfill each point of the triangle.
The wall-hanging pieces, made of smart gestures manipulated delicately by the artist's hand, mixes in the romantic notion of the sublime. Like paintings made of crystalline brushstrokes, each salt and sand work is held together as if by divine, enzymatic intervention. The sculptures in NOTHING are informed by the ancient and sacred belief that Pythagorean geometry and the laws of the universe work together and can be harnessed to aid spiritual transendence. These simple shapes, each considered to be perfect and carry emotional weight, are adapted to form sculptures made of cement poured in intentional bands. The resulting surface qualities effectively trick the eye into rethinking the self-referential connotations of the material.
Fernando Mastrangelo has exhibited extensively throughout the US and internationally in both group and solo shows. Prior to pursuing his career in the arts & design, he worked as an assistant to Matthew Barney. In 2008 the Brooklyn Museum acquired Mastrangelo's work, then included it in the critically-accalaimed exhibition Connecting Cultures in 2012. He has been featured in publications such as the Wall Street Journal, Whitewall Magazine, Flaunt Magazine, Cultured Magazine, where he is a contributing editor, and the Miami Herald, among many others. Additionally Mastrangelo is co-founder of a design firm, AMMA, that runs out of his Brooklyn studio.
