THE EVERYTHING FOR THE MAN? OPENING 5.10.24 11.30 A.M

bipersonal exhibition by Alessandro Lando and Matteo Mo

Opening Saturday, October 5, 11:30 a.m. [On view from October 5 to November 5, 2024]

Photographic Portraits and Realist Painting, together for an exhibition with bittersweet tones that does not wish to please but uses aesthetics as a latch to break down commonplaces and shed light on the uncomfortable shadows of human character.

Matteo Mo’s photographs are from his “Biblical Portraits” project previewed at MIA PHOTO FAIR in Milan in 2022. Today expanded and evolved with additional shots that enrich the stories. Portraits of biblical characters immersed in the contemporary, like Flemish paintings, tell the story of life. Stories of men and women who cross time showcasing frailties, fears, states of mind. Matteo Mo offers us, through his shots taken “on stage,” the possibility of glimpsing the individual temperament through clues, details, objects that lead us to grasp their personal history as eyewitnesses. Pop – popular characters in whom we can reflect ourselves .

Alessandro Lando’s oil works might look like still lifes, common objects immortalized in their natural essence exposed to a vibrant light that amplifies their material, but the composition and choice of subjects lead us to ancient reminders. Like contemporary vanitas, his works are questions that must be interpreted, through conceptual clues. Lando, in some well-measured cases, even applies a movement to the painting to mark, force the breaking time by giving emphasis and amplifying the message. The colors and technique lend lightness to a profound message thus creating a visual oxymoron.

“The exhibition appears to be a variegated expressivism of vanitas that induce a swinging “distance-vicinity ”regarding the contemplative approach and allow the promulgation of repeated metaphors. One glimpses tangles of symptoms, cues and destinations that lead back to known if yet unseen mental maps. Traces sometimes mimetic, sometimes explicit, that return a portion of disenchantment so that the useful existential cadence does not appear too distant and divorced from the appropriate reality.”(from L.C.’s critical text)

Alessandro Lando (Casetellamonte To, 1980)

Attends and graduates from the Felice Faccio Art Institute in Castellamonte.

Constantly experiments with both painting and sculpture. Participates in various exhibitions including the exhibition of ceramics in Castellamonte. In 2004 he moved to Spain. Here he continues painting, becomes a member of the association APLAMA (Asociación de Artistas Plásticos de Malaga) and with their collaboration participates in two group exhibitions (2018-2019), a drawing competition as well as a solo exhibition.

His works are exhibited in “La Casa Amarilla” in Malaga. In 2022, he returned to and in 2023 was selected among finalists of the third edition of the Artrise Prize.

Istagram landoalessandro_art

Matteo Mo (borgoseisa VC, 1975)

He began to conceive photography as a pictorial act, trying to take his first shots he realized that the potentialities of the photographic language are akin to those of painting: from here his first project was born, baptized #HASTAGLAVISTA precisely by Monica Cremaschi who, with Open Art House, became his gallerist. The final product is very reminiscent of the particularity of old Polaroids, which are printed on dibond with a size of 40×40. The final image also includes the various hastags that are not just reduced to simple codes, but become actual poetic verses that comment on and accompany the visual. With this project he participates in three art fairs:

MIA PHOTO FAIR (Milan) 2021

LUCCA ART FAIR (Lucca) 2023

In 2021 he creates a new project titled BIBLICAL PORTRAITS, which aims to emphasize the exceptional contemporaneity of the Bible, proposing some shots intended as contemporary portraits of the characters who inhabit it, in order to search in the details for the deep meanings of their stories and the messages entrusted to them. Here then are Ruth, Adam and Eve, Job and many others. With this series, I am participating in a new photo fair:

MIA PHOTO FAIR (Milan) 2022.

Both projects are in flux with new shots all the time: #HASTAGLAVISTA becomes an account of personal journeys and BIBLICAL PORTRAITS are enriched with new portraits as, the stories flow. Both series can be seen on his profile

Instagram: @matteo.mo.