Sandro Chia's warriors inaugurate Area\B's new Milan space.

AreaB gallery ’s new Milanese space opens and the first exhibition to be mounted is Sandro Chia. The Emperor’s Army, dedicated to Sandro Chia (Florence, 1946), one of the principal exponents of the Transavanguardia movement. Visitors will be able to see a selection of Xi’An warriors from May 17 to July 19, 2019: six life-size polychrome terracotta warriors and a horse, as well as a series of large-scale paintings.

This solo exhibition curated by Alberto Fiz is intended to reflect on a particular aspect of the artist’s appropriation of archaeology in order to decontextualize and actualize it.

The terracotta army warriors dating back to the 3rd century B.C. were discovered by chance by a peasant while digging a well: it was one of the most important discoveries in Chinese history included in the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
Chia made a pictorial intervention on these soldiers from the Xi’An region, evoking the original matrix with respect to specimens that were already painted in bright colors at their birth.

The artist wanted to re-imagine the Chinese army, and after making a series of faithful copies in terracotta between 2009 and 2010, he unveiled them through a transgressive use of the pictorial sign. His action, with strong colors, from orange to electric blue, allows giving a second life to the emperor’s soldiers who become, two thousand years after their creation, icons of contemporaneity.

“Chia acts on the skin of the sculpture with grafts, tattoos and sudden contaminations (one could even speak of body painting) leaving the original body unchanged. In this sense, his action appears charged with strong ambiguity where unveiling brings with it an action of concealment. In this way, nostalgia for the ancient becomes cathartic to reread today’s reality.The Tuscan artist, therefore, constructs his masquerades and invites us to observe the resurrected army, well aware that his painting takes on a destabilizing linguistic power,” explains the curator.

For info: www.areab.it

Hours: Monday to Friday 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.; Saturday by appointment. Closed Sunday.

Free admission.

Image: Sandro Chia, Warrior of Xi’An (2010; polychrome terracotta, about 190 cm).

Sandro Chia's warriors inaugurate Area\B's new Milan space.

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