Deutsche Version
Versión en español
Version française
Versione italiana
The show
OPENING – March 10, 2024 from 12:00 to 20:00.
On March 10, 2024 from 12:00 to 20:00, the VOLUME! Foundation inaugurates The game is forbidden to minors , a new work by Claudio Martinez , with a critical text by Manuela De Leonardis . The artist continues the exhibition cycle of the current year by carrying forward the narrative that VOLUME! began in 2021 and sees the spaces in via Sales divided into two environments and two different atmospheres but in constant dialogue with each other.
For this intervention, Claudio Martinez invites the observer to an intimate but pressing encounter with his own feelings; emotions that arise from the immersive vision of a reality that intercepts the metaverse remaining suspended in a precarious balance between hypothesis and simulation. Strongly inspired by the dreamlike and surrealist atmospheres of artists such as Paul Delvaux and René Magritte, Martinez has created, starting from 2023, a new series of color photographic works which, on this occasion, connects with the spaces of VOLUME!.
In The game is forbidden to minors, the characters with which the artist worked highlight the absurdity of existence through the key of irony, the only weapon capable of highlighting all its facets and the chiaroscuro of reality itself. Through the use of photographic images, Martinez creates settings that are surprising not only for their realism but also for the subtle dialogue they engage in with the surrounding space. Everything thus becomes absolutely real on the one hand, and totally unreal on the other due to the absurdity of the conditions that these characters find themselves living in. If gaming is forbidden to minors, adults have no choice but to imagine themselves as children to overcome the ancient prohibition and create parallel realities in which imagination has the right to asylum.
Claudio Martinez was born in Rome in 1968, discovered his passion for photography at the age of fourteen and, in 1988, obtained a diploma as a photojournalist and stage photographer at the R. Rossellini State Institute for Cinematography and Television in Rome Between 1988 and 1993 he worked as a still photographer on the sets lit by the director of photography Vittorio Storaro. Subsequently he collaborated as a freelancer with various advertising agencies including McCann Erickson, Saatchi & Saatchi, Ogilvy. Over the years he has also worked for various newspapers and art magazines such as "The New York Times", "Globe and Mail Toronto", "Toronto National Post", "Herald Tribune", "Drome Magazine" and others. In 2003 he was a still photographer on the set of the film Il Pane Nudo based on the novel by Mohamed Choukri and directed by director Rachid Benhadj. From this experience a photography book was also born, published in 2004.
Since 2010 he has dedicated himself to directing and directing photography of underwater documentaries and television programs with the Explorer Team Pellicano. In the following years he dedicated himself almost exclusively to the creation of documentaries, music videos, interviews, commercials and short films. Since 2018 he has collaborated with the Istituto Superiore di Sanità for the direction and creation of health communication commercials, in collaboration with the author Claudio Morici.
Always attracted by music, he was also a singer and musician for several years in numerous Roman blues bands. He has currently stopped his live music activity but collaborates with numerous musicians to create covers and video clips and, occasionally, to record albums.
Since 1999 he has combined professional photography with the exhibition of his research work.
Personal exhibitions: 2022, Personal exhibition “failed plan B” gallery AREA 1070 – Vienna; 2015, Collective exhibition “Portafortuna” Varco Labile gallery – Rome; 2013, “Neglected Soul”, solo exhibition for the VOLUME Foundation! at the Art Core Gallery Rome; 2011, Installation “La Rivincita del Bombo Terrestre” collective exhibition Reload for Condotto C – Rome; 2009, Collective exhibition “Checkpoint Charlie” the Berlin Wall 20 years after the fall of the Dora Diamanti gallery – Rome; 2009, “Black & Light” for the International Photography Festival in collaboration with Condotto C – Rome ; 2008, “Suspended” personal exhibition Hybrida Contemporanea gallery – Rome; 2006, Collective exhibition Don't sleep! live art 2006, white night, Rome; 2005, Collective exhibition “Infanzia”, Cube Gallery, Venice.
Contacts:
email: press@fondazionevolume.com
telephone: 06.6892431
