data: process, Marco Cianfanelli's solo exhibition hosted by the UJ Art Gallery and curated by Tracy Murinik during July 2012, is a type of retrospective or re-looking: at his extensive output of work to date, but also at his own working process.

Well-known for his bold public art pieces and large-scale sculptural works, Cianfanelli’s latest exhibition explores a different moment of his work – literally, those works in process – his detailed maquettes: complex fine renderings of ideas and myriad aspects of data deftly translated into prospective form.

The exhibition takes form as a relational overview of these objects and their conceptual bases, rather than as a chronological progression of Cianfanelli’s output; although the scope of works included here does range from his very early engagements with form, idea and material – including two-dimensional renderings, in paint and branding, and relief works in paper – to current projects and conceptions.

Often concerned with the human form and psyche: in relation to itself, to others, in space, time, action and accumulation, Cianfanelli’s practice involves a complex distillation of initial ideas, expanded upon through intensive research, technical information, translation into digital form and weighed up against prospective media. He works a great deal with repetition, and subtle shift; his accumulated data is calibrated, assessed and digitally rendered; then ultimately reduced to numbers, lines and measurements.

Yet the maquettes reveal a different point of access to his works, as aesthetic objects and as ideas given form. Where the large-scale and public constructions of these works are rendered to appeal and respond to a broad sense of humanity and public, this exhibition instead allows viewers to scrutinise Cianfanelli’s practice as an intimate engagement with the forms, concepts and meticulous calculations that bring the works into different stages of their realisation.

Opening by Marcus Neustetter on Wednesday 4 July 2012 at 18:30 for 19:00.

Lecture and walkabout by the artists on Saturday 14 July 2012 at 10:00 for 10:30.


UJ APK Campus, Cor Kingsway/University Rd, Auckland Park