There´s more to art activist Mimmo Roselli than lines cutting spaces

Mimmo Roselli´s four white lines splicing space at Art on Lake Photograph by Stefan van Drake (2011)

“We need to take a new way to perceive the world: a more slight way, a more transparent way, a less aggressive way, with much more empty spaces, with more silence to listen to a possible dialogue between ethic and aesthetic.”

--Mimmo Roselli

The tower of Vajdahunyad Castle looked mystically moored to City Park Lake by four thick and taught white ropes, sharply distinct lines slicing space into various geometric shapes, depending on where you stand at Art on Lake in Budapest.

Art on Lake, a unique exhibition of 25 contemporary marine sculptures by 25 European Union concept artists, concludes 4 September. It opened 22 May.

The Museum of Fine Arts Budapest launched the show after two years of planning. Curators include Peter Fitz, Dr. Alexander Tolnay and Krisztina Jerger.

Minimalist Roselli said of his work: “My sculptures are spaces into spaces and the people are pushed to use the space as a new space. The space, inside or outside space, is a co-protagonist of the work.”

Roselli, who describes himself as an "artist and painter", installed  his linear motif at the Kiscelli Museum (in Obuda, northern Budapest) in 2008, installing three lines of heavy hemp ropes.

He started from the chancel of the former church, spanning its pace and arcades, before breaking through the walls out into the open air, according to Fitz, also director of the Kiscelli Museum/Budapest Municipal Picture Gallery.

Peter Fitz Photograph by Stefan van Drake

“If we go a little further and enter the conceptual territory of contemporary art, we may also observe the tensions created by these ´rays´ crossing the void as metaphors of the unknown and the unsaid, the unlived and unimagined....,” wrote Pilar Ribal, who curated Roselli´s solo show with Fitz at the Kiscelli.

There´s more to Roselli than lines cleaving space.

His second dimension is monochromatic painting, consistent with his minimalism.

Roselli described his style: 

“My interest has been directed towards large spaces, the ´ground,’ distinguished by lightness and transparency; at the same time by stratification and a great richness of details: these spaces are furrowed by signs that cross the canvas like a walk in a vast landscape.”

Mimmo Roselli´s installation at Kiscelli Muzeum, Budapest 2008

Between projects and shows, Roselli, who lives in Florence (b.1952 Rome), teaches and inspires children and adults to create murals and other projects in poor barrios of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil and in Ipitacito del Monte, Bolivia.

Since 2007, Roselli has actively sought funding to launch a school of art in the Chaco region of Bolivia.

For Roselli, these are hands-on art missions, interventions.

You can explore these in detail on the artist´s officialwebsite. Definitely worth reading.

Very uplifting.

Roselli has also exhibited in: New York; Rome; Firenze, Italy; Heidelberg; Lodz, Poland; Nicosia, Cyprus; Vienna; Basel, Switzerland; California and Florida, USA and Frankfurt.

Rock on and practice peace and love.

Stefan, the ArtTraveler ™

ArtTraveler notes:

After living at the Hotel Queen Mary in Budapest (3.5 stars), I heartily recommend it: old on the outside, otherwise totally modern (23 rooms); 

The owner and staff are affable and speak English and German. Tel: 0036-1-413-3510; www.hotelqueenmary.hu; info@hotelqueenmary.hu.

Visit Andalusia for a walking holiday or week-long sculpture or mosaics workshop. 

See: www.spanjeanders.nl and www.competafinearts.com.

"Spanish Life Stilled," photograph by Stefan van Drake (2009)

You may reach me at stefanvandrake@gmail.com or by calling (34) 915 067 703 or from the UK at BT landline rates, 0844 774 8349.