Valerio Berruti inaugurates his first solo exhibition in China today, in the prestigious Teagan Space in Youyi Bay, in the Beijing district where the new Aranya seaside resort is located. «It is a city that did not exist before Covid and which today already has 50 thousand inhabitants and is connected to other similar centers created to welcome the growing Chinese middle class – the artist from Alba tells us on the phone, while he is setting up his latest works -. Each neighborhood has a cultural center: some have the museum, some the theater and the auditorium, some the library and the film library, all created by the greatest Chinese architects of the moment.”
Valerio Berruti had the honor not only of making his debut in Middle-earth, but also of being the first Western artist exhibited in Teagan Space: «The curator of the exhibition, Roxy Y. Tang, had seen some works that I had exhibited at Maxxi in Rome when it was led by the critic Hou Hanru and he proposed this collaboration to me” explains Berruti. Thus was born the “Circulating sketch” project which brings together within the Teagan Space a series of new small-sized drawings exhibited in five different rooms, a space dedicated to site-specific ceramic productions and another intended for video animations that tell the artist’s poetics is always linked to childhood. The facade of the museum space and that of the adjacent building also host two large 30×10 meter installations, while a monumental steel sculpture will be inaugurated in the summer and will be permanently positioned in the outdoor spaces of the museum.
«I thought of creating a couple of embracing children, cultivating the idea of DNA as a symbol of universal brotherhood. The intertwining of the children creates a spiral similar to that of the filament that twists endlessly, recalling ideals such as brotherly love and humanity” says the artist.
As underlined by the curator Roxy Y. Tang, who explains: «This exhibition focuses on the projection of memory through personal and collective experiences. The visitor is guided from the dream world to reality through lyrical, flexible and continuous flows in a sort of modern narrative.”
Contemporary Chinese art is among the most lively and heterogeneous in the world, but there is a close affinity with the production of the artist from Alba. «I really love their essentiality and I have often been inspired by currents such as calligraphy, which here is considered a real art of writing – confesses Berruti -. If today’s Americans are children of Andy Warhol and his Pop criticism of American society, the Chinese recognize themselves more in an art that also recalls our Renaissance. An idea that I myself pursue, cultivating the craftsmanship of drawing, of sculpture, of works entirely made by hand.” But he adds: «However, what is striking is their extraordinary workforce, the quality of the executions they put in place in a very short time». And he says: «The other day, looking at a large window that illuminates one of the rooms of the museum space, I thought out loud: “It would have been nice to print a window decal with a merry-go-round of my children, it’s a shame I hadn’t thought of it before!”. The assistant who takes care of the setup heard me and said: “No problem: if you have the file available, we can do it”. And after less than 24 hours they had the adhesive labels ready to stick to the glass, perfectly executed. For something like this, it would have taken us at least three weeks.” China is close and moving fast.
