The Navate of the Pirelli HangarBicocca reveal the art of Nari Ward with the Ground Break retrospective which can be visited from 28 March to 28 July.
The exhibition, curated by Roberta Tenconi with Lucia Aspesi, traces the artist's thirty-year practice with a large corpus of works by Ward, born in Jamaica in 1963 but who lives and works in New York, particularly in Harlem.
A place intimately connected to his art which uses recycled elements.
Glass bottles, shoelaces, strollers, household appliances are chosen for their narrative strength, to address social issues, recall stories and give birth to new ones, in a continuous cycle.
"All the works found in non-chronological order are re-creations of historical works - explained the curator Roberta Tenconi -, which have been revised for this exhibition".
Nari Ward talked about the emotion of working in an environment like Pirelli HangarBicocca.
"Here space can be something that intimidates - she explained - because it is enormous but it is also a challenge that excites".
The Navate hosts four large-format installations that Ward created between 1996 and 2000 for Ralph Lemon's Geography Trilogy performance project.
Installations that are set up for the first time in an exhibition context.
Opening and closing the exhibition are two works from the same year, 1996. 'Hunger Cradle' is composed of a network of intertwined threads containing recycled objects.
The first installation dates back to 1996 for an exhibition held in a former fire station in Harlem, where the artist collected the objects that told the story of the life of that building, built in 1916. Each time the work grows, at the Pirelli HangarBicocca the new elements also include the bricks used for the newly produced work 'Ground Break'.
It is a flooring installation made up of over 4000 concrete bricks covered with copper sheets.
The performances that accompany the exhibition are held here.
The journey ends with another work from 1996, 'Happy Smilers: Duty Free Shopping'.