The Association has undertaken an ambitious goal: to transform the spaces available, redeveloped in 2019, and offer the community a new artistic experience based on the evolution of its own history exhibition. This is an integral part of the mission of the Association M.Ar.Co, which is dedicated to the promotion of the multiple languages of contemporary art. The goal nowadays has been achieved thanks to the valuable collaboration of in-house artists who contribute with their works of high quality and deep research.
This time is the turn of artist Mario Arlati, whose extraordinary sensitivity has been noticeable in his creative path since his beginnings, in the late seventies. Throughout his work, the artist was able to engage and embark on a dialogue with the viewer. Today Arlati freely ranges from minimal pictorial to complex material research, generating three-dimensional surfaces that aim at making the interlocutor “lose the horizon”. Hence, the main objective of his work, his best-known series has shaped into the chimerical dimension: material surfaces and typical colors of the Mediterranean alternate with low layered and informal reliefs, creating craters, wounds and tears, children of a spatialism that has certainly left in the artist the desire to undertake a journey to the total edge. Arlati is demanding with the materiality of his work, which never leaves “calm and firm”: he digs, he engraves, he sculpts surfaces that, thanks to their three-dimensionality, allow them to be observed at different times. His poetic of color is intrinsically linked to his roots and reflects his desire to explore the chromatic purity typical of the Mediterranean. This geographic area is a key element in his artistic expression.
Just like his artistic research, Mario Arlati continues to evolve constantly. His physical need to interact intensely with the raw material and to accept the challenges it poses constantly pushes him to look for new directions. In the context of the Monza Arte Contemporanea, his art finds purpose through the latest research of Arlati, focusing on the use of memory-rich materials, such as rags. The artist looks to the future of these memories, which today may seem objects of consumption and encumbrance, but which, for him represent a vital source of energy for the creation of his work. Rags, volumes and colors become the vehicle of a meditative process in search of answers to the question "Where are we going?".
The exhibition is part of the 'Flag' project: on July 20th, 2023, at the Carrobiolo educational center in Monza, it took place a creative workshop dedicated to young people with disabilities and relationship problems, promoted by the social enterprise Il Carro with the support of UNIDO ITPO Italy. The event was organized by the Association M.Ar.Co, which strengthened its collaboration with Il Carro to support inclusive art.
The artist Mario Arlati contributed to the workshop creating a work that symbolizes the unity between the different realities of the participants. During the event, young people painted the UN flag on a canvas made with recycled materials, promoting the circular economy and raising awareness of the sustainable development goals of the UN 2030 Agenda. This initiative therefore promotes inclusive industrial development and sustainability, in line with UNIDO's mandate and its motto "Progress by Innovation”.
