Marco Bolognesi SENDAI CITY

Picking an object, a figure, a story, from somewhere and connecting it to something else leads to something new, charged with a different meaning and filled with new life.
That is how Bolognesi builds a large installation, a city, combining toys from several generations of children; the playful element and the spirit of discovery that are inherent in these objects are transferred to the installation, merging with the fascination of the science-fiction world and the modernity's angst, producing dissonance.
This place is the starting point for the narration of the artist's world: "I am convinced that places are defined and characterized mainly by the things that happen there. That is why I animate my metropolis with figures and stories from my own world, with movies that I love, and with the culture that inspires me; stories that unfold on the streets, in the palazzi, in the trains of my metropolis of timeless future.“
In order to tell these stories, Bolognesi draws on movies, or, to be more precise: on the Italian science fiction movies of the 1960s and 1970s with their countless references to the politics and society of those days, looking at the future to discuss the present.
These old flickers by famous Italian movie makers form the basis for the artist's blend. He describes his world through the means of video art by adding new recordings and using illustrations and animation: a post-human and post-punk world.

Catalog: NFC Edizioni

Marco Bolognesi

Born 1974 in Bologna. In 2001, he completed his musicology and theater science studies in Bologna.
In 1994 and 1996, he made his first videos for RAI; they were shown at the Giffon Film Festival and the Venice Biennale.
In London, where Bolognesi has been living since 2002, he won The Artist in Residence Award in 2003 at the Italian Cultural Institute. In the same year, the exhibition "Woodland" was held, followed by a volume of photographs under the same title, two years later. This volume accompanied his first solo exhibition at the Cyntia Corbett Gallery in London.
In 2008, Bolognesi's short movie "Black Hole" was nominated the best science fiction movie at the Indie Short Film Competition in Florida. In the same year, his monograph "Dark Star" was published.  He published "Protocollo", the first volume of a graphic novel, together with Carlo Lucarelli in 2009 at Einaudi. Also in 2009, Bolognesi presented at the London Olyvia Fine Art Z Generation: "Realm of Ambiguity", and at the Fondazione Solares delle Arti in Parma, the project "Genesis".
In 2011, he presented the installation "Mock-up" at the Festival Invideo of IED in Milano, and side by side with Damien Hirst, Helmut Newton, and Sarah Lucas, he took part in the exhibition "What made us famous".
At the European Photography Festival in Reggio Emilia, he presented his latest work in May 2012, "Humanescape". In the same year, Bolognesi took part in the Biennial of Contemporary Art Italy-China, and he opened the exhibition B.O.M.A.R. Universe at the gallery La Giarina in Verona. Also in 2012, he took part in the festival Eyes On - Monat der Fotografie in Vienna.
Bolognesi lives and works in Rome and London.