Paolo Marcolongo - Atemporary Studio

Adornment – Curating Contemporary Art Jewelry is pleased to present a solo show by Paolo Marcolongo, which will be held during the Munich Jewellery Week (March 9th – 17th 2019) at the incredible showroom of Ingo Maurer. In this converted 7.500 ft (700 mq) industrials space come and find a place for creative contemplation, refined design open dialogue, and technical explanation.

Paolo Marcolongo is an artist with a unique and multifaceted inspiration, and one of the most significant representatives of the Scuola Orafa Padovana.
The exhibition presents the latest artistic production expressed in both jewellery and objects, mostly vases and glass sculptures. A compendium of his researches which links different series and collections.

Paolo Marcolongo, Grass Ring Silver, 2016
Ph. Alberto Petrò

In his jewellery all the complexities of the numerous sculptural, artistic, philosophical and aesthetic references that characterize his creative evolution find a compendium and perfect balance. Nature blossoms in both its sensuality and danger, on the one hand expressed by precious metals which are at times stinging, sharp, edgy, thorny, on the other in the feminine voluptuousness of the softness of glass that explodes in a tormenting struggle for freedom: an ancestral, mythological, almost archetypal dialogue between colour, transparency, weight and form.

Paolo Marcolongo, Grass Ring Silver, 2016
Ph. Alberto Petrò

The craftsman articulates his personal language without any simplistic or reductive attitude, even in his most minimalistic works. Workmanship techniques belonging to the glassmaking tradition and the goldsmith’s art are combined in order to achieve unique and incredible results.

The complex relationship between metals and glass develops in both the construction of the pieces and in the aesthetic results; it is confrontational and unconscious, passing from the function of metal as a support to a constrictive and retentive element.

Needles and pins protrude from the body of the rings to retain and contain the soft shapes of the glass and the infinite potentiality of its movement. An erotic and sensual game takes place between the two entities, between the cold and rough metals and the purity of the glass that emerges.

Paolo Marcolongo, Untitled Iron Murano Glass, 19.5×33.5x26cm, 2015
Ph. by Alberto Petrò

In his vases, the iron is incorporated into the glass as if it were a design, a theme, a painted set. The structure of glass maintains a thick and solid body, balanced by the delicacy, albeit dense, of metal, which is pursued in irregular movements.

The staging of primitive, irregular elements, dark colours and transparent visions, responds to the artist’s need to represent primordial chaos and the original freedom of form.

Paolo Marcolongo, Untitled Iron Murano Glass, 2015
Ph. by Alberto Petrò

In the objects and small sculptures, a conceptual game and an architectural interlocking of colors, weights and shapes prevail. Delicate scaffoldings draw and frame the space in minimalistic visions in which the glass is often contaminated by rust and iron, laterally positioned, to counteract the vacuum and balance the space.

His long-standing collaboration with the Masters of Murano ensures glass of the most outstanding quality.