BEYOND LIVING : MATTEO CALLEGARI AND SOREN ROI

Lucie Fontaine is pleased to announce “Beyond Living,” a collaborative project between Matteo Callegari and Soren Roi. The project will open on September 28 from 6 to 8pm at Lucie Fontaine’s venue in via Rinaldo Rigola 1, Milan, and will run until December 22. On this occasion, Soren Roi will perform at Atomic Bar, via Felice Casati 24, Milan, on September 28 at 9:30pm.

Artist Matteo Callegari and musician/accessory designer Soren Roi have collaborated on a site-specific exhibition for Lucie Fontaine’s space in Milan. Callegari and Roi challenged and expanded their practice beyond their comfort zone, interacting on both visual and audile levels. Multiple forms and recurring patterns are presented on flat and tridimensional surfaces through different media such as painting, wallpaper, furniture, accessories, music tracks and sound installations, generating a unique environment.

Matteo Callegari will present a series of paintings where the artist pursues his parallel research focused on the liaison between figuration and abstraction. While meticulously applying visual filters to an initial source image, Callegari employs a transfer technique in manifold directions that overlap, cover or extract lines and trajectories of the composition. A pattern printed on wallpaper will be displayed in harmony with the architecture of the space and in close dialogue with the paintings.

Four rhythmic sound pieces by Soren Roi – recorded on cassette tapes – will be playing simultaneously, penetrating the space from multiple sources. While exploring different musical genres, Soren Roi develops an experimental dance music infused with noise, techno ambient and drone. The final result combines contrasting directions in order to articulate different emotions as part of the same melody.

A limited edition series of leather bags designed by Soren Roi will be displayed on wooden supports designed by Matteo Callegari. Roi’s structured bags are inspired by crystal and dodecahedrons and incorporate prints from Callegari’s paintings in their lining. Once again, the painted image is transposed on a new surface, playing different roles in dialogue with its surrounding elements.

Matteo Callegari was born in 1979 in Latisana, Italy. He lives and works in New York. He graduated from Hunter College in 2011 and this will be the first time he is showing in Italy, after his recent solo show at Ramiken Crucible in New York last spring. In 2013 he participated in the group shows “Champs-Élysées” at Palais de Tokyo in Paris, “39greatjones” at Eva Presenhuber in Zurich and the group show organized by Ugo Rondinone for the project room of Sommer Contemporary Art in Tel Aviv. Concurrently to his project at Lucie Fontaine, Callegari’s solo show “Today Is No Yesterday” will open at Federico Vavassori on September 28 from 11am to 1pm.

Soren Roi was born in 1989 in New York, where he lives and works. He received an associate degree in Accessories Design from Fashion Institute of Technology. He founded the band Røsenkøpf in 2010 and they released the homonymous album with Weird Records in 2012 and toured in the United States. Soren Roi also performs as an electronic solo project. He is the curator for the music series “Nothing Changes” at Home Sweet Home, New York.

Special thanks to Federico Vavassori and Designo Visual.