Sarah Morris: China 9, Liberty 37

MAMbo – Museo d'Arte Moderna of Bologna is presenting the first solo exhibition of Sarah Morris in an Italian museum and has the pleasure of welcoming the international première of her new film, Beijing.

Morris's paintings and films are characterised by an abstract and complex structural approach. The urban environments, the architectural motifs, the symbols and the representations of the power are the subject of the artist's close investigation. Morris assesses what today's architectural façades, urban structures, cities and nations might conceal on their surfaces. Often, these non-narrative fictional analyses result in conspiratorial studies of power, of the structures of control, of global socio-political networks.

Beijing, an 86-minute 35mm film, focuses on one of the most intricate and ambiguous international broadcasted events of past years: the 2008 Olympic Games held in Beijing. Morris's film observes the overwhelmingly perplexing and contradictory economy and authority of China, made all the more resonant in current climate of global crisis. Beijing is a surreal portrait of a state of turbo-capitalism, during a period when the International Olympic Committee effectively took over sovereignty of the capital.

China 9, Liberty 37, a reference to the English title of 1978 Italian/Spanish western film Amore, piombo e furore, comprises the film, a series of paintings from the series Origami and Rings and a new site specific large scale wall painting (Taurus).

The Origami and Rings series, a coupling, signify possible impending events and the multiple cities and years of their correspondence. The Rings paintings are titled by date of the various years of Olympic games and their corresponding cities from the past into the future. The large scale intervention, Taurus, will occupy a 30-metre-long exhibition hall.

In concomitance with the exhibition in Bologna, Beijing, a new publication edited by MAMbo – Museo d'Arte Moderna of Bologna, MMK – the Museum für Moderne Kunst of Frankfurt and Witte de With – Center for Contemporary Art of Rotterdam, will be available. The catalogue is published by König Books.

Sarah Morris was born in the United Kingdom in 1967. She lives and works between London and New York.

Sarah Morris
China 9, Liberty 37

Kuratoren: Gianfranco Maraniello, Andrea Viliani