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ROME INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR 2022 organized by ITSLIQUID Group, will be held in Rome, at Medina Art Gallery from May 20 to June 03, 2022. The exhibition provides artists and exhibitors with the unique opportunity to present their works to an international audience of professionals as curators, gallerists, collectors, editors and publishers who seek to acquire, publish and encourage the best contemporary art talents.

The exhibition analyzes the relationship between body and space, and the hybridization between identities and cultural/physical/social/urban settings in contemporary time, through two main sections: MIXING IDENTITIES and FUTURE LANDSCAPES. MIXING IDENTITIES focuses on the human body as a changing system connected to other bodies and spaces, and analyzes the hidden parts of our identities, through the fascinating universe of the labyrinths of our consciousness. FUTURE LANDSCAPES is about the concept of borders and structures between body, mind and soul, the human identity and the city, the space and the ground. We create abstract, infinite and conceptual landscapes, associated with a sense of freedom and infinite extension. Spaces redefine
their limits and boundaries, transforming surfaces in an open flow of pure ideas.

Speaking about ‘Future Landscapes’, artists such as Agnès Rancier Picard and Joel Douek perfectly show us their ideas about this theme. Agnès Rancier Picard presents three mixed media artworks from her “Zip” colored series. Since the pieces are made from discarded paper and real zippers, her aim is to make aware of nature’s infinite resources with a view to our future; while the zippers open to new possible scenarios by revealing the ‘untold’ of our real humanity. Even the work “Portal” by Joel Douek represents a passage towards parallel worlds and imaginaries. Starting from raw and natural materials like woods and metals, which appear to contrast with each other, the artist analyzes the way they actually change, evolve and are vulnerable, and he tries to make the viewers reflect in them as a part of the same natural force. Maria Angelica Viso, with her "Organic geometries" aluminum work creates her own kind of geometry to redefine the usual concept of reality. She realizes a different, fantastic landscape driven by her mind, but that ultimately lead us back to familiar shapes and figures. For A Young Lee, the new, future world is delineated by the new language that she uses in her paintings, which is a typography that dismantles the essential elements of a traditional language and communicates a new meaning. “Rather than deeply thinking about what are the hidden messages in my works, I hope people see them just as they are, and feel them”, said the author; “Instead of guides for how to read my works, I chose for people to imagine infinitely and freely, to be honest with their feelings, to reflect on my works with their own experiences and see them from their own point of view”.

The works of Lionel Machris are a ‘bridge’ between the FUTURE LANDSCAPES and the MIXING IDENTITIES sections. Through the four photos on display in this exhibition, all of them refined with 24 carat gold leaf on their surfaces, he manages to create a moment that interweaves fiction and realism, and leaves plenty of room for imagination and own interpretation. “Wohin” (Where to), in particular, is a picture of the blurring of our body and of our being - where does it go after death, is there another life, another dimension, something that makes sense that we have lived? Or is it nothing? David Jacobson as well reflects on the theme of life after death, but in a whole different way. He presents his “7 Confections” installation, composed of diaries and sketchpads bound and sealed together refusing to allow access to his innermost thoughts. The aim of the artwork is to make these documents remain private domain forever, and to avoid the deconstruction of an artist’s life through a misrepresentation of the artist’s intentions. Masaki Hirokawa, Japanese photographer and graphic artist, participates with a series of digital photographs in which the postproduction action transforms the reality into a fantastic and optimistic interpretation of it. His message is that there are always salvation and guidance for all people on this world, sent by a higher dimensional being, and they will lead us to a rebirth, a true human renaissance. As always, in this exhibition we will share with our visitors also a screening program with a few video works by artists coming from all over the world (see video-program-rome-international-art-fair-2022.pdf).

Moreover, during ROME INTERNATIONAL ART FAIR 2022, at the street number 36 of the Medina Art Gallery, we will be pleased to present the solo exhibition of Barbara Gundlach, a German born artist who currently lives and works in New York. She is a conceptual artist and her practice is focused on triggering the viewer’s visceral experience, thereby allowing the onlooker to explore their own shifting states of perception by imploring the natural perceptions of vision and sound. After a post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as the result of a prolonged coma, Barbara decided to inform her artistic research by the desire to explore human perception and identify various stages of awareness. Through this, she wants to enable the viewers to use their own imagination to become part of a physical experiment to interrogate their own expectations of how memory is created, perceived and recorded. To know more about Barbara Gundlach’s solo exhibition, please check the ‘solo exhibition Barbara Gundlach' press folder.

VENUE
Medina Art Gallery
Via Angelo Poliziano 32-34, 00184, Roma, Italy
OPENING May 20, 2022 | 06:00PM
May 21 - June 03, 2022
10:00AM - 01:00PM and 03:00PM - 07:00PM | Monday - Sunday
Free entry

SELECTED ARTISTS
Luz Bañón . Spain | Nathalie Bergeron Duval . France | Angelina Berzhaner . Switzerland | Marina Comerio . Italy | Yishi Deng . USA | Cristian Diez Sanchez . Spain | Joel Douek . UK/USA | Barbara Gundlach . Germany/USA | Masaki Hirokawa . Japan | David Jacobson . UK | Françoise Jetteur . Belgium | Dojoong Jo . South Korea | Yanna Kali . Greece | A Young Lee . South Korea | Lionel Machris . Germany | Lilit Nshani Margaryan . Armenia | Riitta Nelimarkka . Finland | Jiaqi Pan . China | Agnès Rancier Picard . France | Elena Prosdocimo . Italy | Maria Claudia Rivadeneira . Colombia | Kate Rossini . UK | Christina Sirmons . USA | Angela Thouless . Scotland | Juan Pablo Vivanco Viniegra . Mexico | Maria Angélica Viso . Venezuela | Fabiana Vizzani Reis . Portugal | Jiawei Wu . USA

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