Arcangelo Sassolino

Arcangelo Sassolino (born 1967 in Montecchio Maggiore, Italy) currently lives and works in Vicenza, Italy. Sassolino’s work is the result of a close dialogue between art and physics. His interest in mechanics and technology opens up new meanings and possibilities for sculpture. Speed, pressure, gravity, acceleration and heat are the core of his artistic practice, which is always aimed at pushing the ultimate limit of matter’s resistance. Sassolino’s works usually consist of devices that generate inorganic performances. The materials involved, often industrial, come aliverevealing contrasts and opposing forces. His works embody intrinsic conflicts and push us to contemplate the risk of the work’s collapse as a fundamental part of its experience. By exploring different states of matter, Sassolino’s works manifest a level of tension, suspension, unpredictability and danger. Insofar as failure is always a concrete possibility, his works materially embed an inescapable aspect of the human condition.

Sassolino’s work has been the subject of several solo exhibitions, at Contemporary Art Museum, St. Louis; Frankfurter Kunstverein, Frankfurt; Palais de Tokyo, Paris; Museo MACRO, Rome; Z33 House for Contemporary Art, Hasselt; Académie de France – Villa Medici, Rome; and Arte Sella, Borgo Valsugana, Trento; and in art galleries at Galleria Continua, San Gimignano/Paris; Galleria dello Scudo, Verona; and Repetto Gallery, London. Sassolino’s work has been also featured in a number of group exhibitions, at 2nd Islamic Arts Biennale in Jeddah, 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Malta Pavilion, Venice; Fondation Carmignac, Île de Porquerolles; Spazi Capaci, Palermo; Kunstmuseum Bonn, Bonn; 17th International Architecture Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, Venice; Grand Palais, Paris; Kunstverein Hannover, Hannover; Broad Art Museum, East Lansing; Palazzo Ducale, Venice; Fundación Pablo Atchugarry, Punta del Este; Le Centquatre-Paris, Paris; CCC Strozzina, Florence; Museo MART, Rovereto; Art and The City, Zurich; Swiss Institute, New York; Tinguely Museum, Basel; Peggy Guggenheim Collection, Venice; Dunkers Kulturhus, Helsingborg; FRAC Museum Regional, Reims; ZKM, Karlsruhe; and Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice.