Nero/Alessandro Neretti's Site-Specific Exhibition at Beelden aan Zee

Italian artist Nero/Alessandro Neretti (Faenza, 1980) presents his first solo exhibition in the Netherlands, 'Life is a burning tire', at Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Hague until August 27, 2017. The show features new works experimenting with found objects, bricolage, and materials, engaging with the museum's architecture—a former royal summer residence on the North Sea dunes. Neretti's site-specific practice involves layering historical references, from Flemish Golden Age painting to Chinese ceramic dogs and 1850s papier-mâché. He incorporates industrial waste, motorcycle helmets, and bicycle tires, creating precarious balances. A notable element is a video showing him longboarding through the museum's collection, a normally prohibited act that became integral to the project. The artist discusses his use of color inspired by Dutch masters like Rembrandt and Vermeer, and his shift in titling from conceptual to descriptive. The exhibition interacts with the museum's permanent plaster cast collection, creating unexpected relationships. Neretti, who studied at the Istituto d'Arte in Faenza, has a long history with ceramics, having worked in Italian and international ceramic traditions (Faenza, Nove, Albisola, Sassuolo, Austria, South Korea, Japan, China). He criticizes the current trend of ceramics in contemporary art as often technically and linguistically poor. The interview was conducted by Lorenzo Madaro.