marco thiella
Color of absence and presence
by nina zerby
How would you describe yourself?
An esthete who dreams of adventures, curious and all seasoned with two drops of cynical humor. In short, that character that not everyone digest for better or for worse 😉
When did you begin to perceive yourself as an artist?
I was very young, 6 or 7, colors and sketches were my favorite pastime. The actual awareness came when at secondary school, during the hours of art education, I was accused by the art teacher of having someone else do the work for me. “Too good to be true!”
What do you want to convey through your work?
My work conveys more to myself than to others, or at least I have the presumption that it like that! It’s a work based on layering and concept of time as scars that remain. Good things and answers are most often found between flaws and mistakes.
The funniest anecdote about your professional experience?
I was lucky enough to work with many international artists, and there would be many anecdotes to tell you; the very salty “risotto” prepared for Kiki Smith, the bizarre nights spent with Oscar Murillo in Berlin. But The Episode (capitol letters!) that now makes me smile (certainly not when it happened) goes back to than I worked as assistant for Marisa Merz. During that time in Venice we shared an apartment while we were preparing an exhibition for the Biennale of Art. my task, in addition to helping the artist in the organizational process of the exhibition, was to take care of Marisa, because of her age and asocial character. Magnificent experience, of course, but no one had warned me that Marisa used to get up in the middle of the night and run away…
What is your dream or aspiration?
I’m realizing it in this moment, a radical change that will lead me to move to Indonesia. I hope this step can channel my energy to do more consistently what I love most: create!
Who are the Italian contemporary artists whose work you admire?
For me, art has a thousand facets so I believe that think only on visual art is an understatement. I really appreciate the work of Luca Guadagnino, Stingel Rudolf and Giorgio Andreotta Calò as an artist and friend.
If you were an artist (I know you are but I mean a famous one) would you be?
I would see myself more as a Paul Gauguin, with the strength of a Louise Nevelson.
3 artists that you love
Louise Nevelson, Kiki Smith and Alberto Burri
What do you like about contemporary humans?
The freedom to travel (or at least when we could) and increasingly mixed couples.
What don’t you like about contemporary humans?
How relationships have evolved. Less physical contact and too much time in front of a screen.
Book on the nightstand now?
Memories of Hadrian (Marguerite Yourcenar) and for a second time Siddhartha (Hermann Hesse).
Marco Thiella
Marco studied painting and installation at the Academy of Fine Arts in Venice, graduating with a research about Ilya Kabakov’ s work.
He was Ilya Kabakov’s Assistant during 2001, 2003. In 2004 he was chosen by the American artist Kiki Smith for the role of personal assistant for develop a project that lasted about a year.
He worked at the Fondazione Querini Stampalia in Venice where he had the opportunity to be in touch with numerous Italian and foreign artists. This allowed him to refine and understand the numerous dynamics surrounding contemporary art.
He lived in Berlin for about ten years. The time he spent in the German capital offered him the opportunity to work for several top-level galleries including Neugerriemschneider, Thomas Schulte, Isabella Bortolozzi and the Sammlung Hoffmann Foundation.
“Marco Thiella’s formal language recalls a different, contradictory modernism: the shapes and appearance of the painted works are somehow reminiscent of the minimalist art of the sixties, and in some cases recalls the Arte Povera.
The neutrality of black and the few tones used by the artist makes it possible to experiment with form almost in the absence of color. The layering of levels, surfaces and depths refers to the human body and character. The fragments together serve a specific purpose: individually, however, they are useless and formless.
Fragments hidden in the works, bring them back to life. “
Ala Glasner
His work has been showed in numerous exhibitions in Italy and abroad. His art works is actually part of private collections in Berlin, Vienna and Stockholm.
