“Much like the attempt, in measured time, to bring sound and dance into the pictorial realm. This is how the path of the Paris exhibition takes shape and unfolds, paying tribute to Baroque ‘forms’ — both musical and visual — and more specifically to Maurice Ravel, whose 150th birthday (1875) is celebrated this year. His compositions often draw inspiration from earlier masters — here, François Couperin, the Baroque composer to whom he dedicated Le Tombeau de Couperin, whose fourth movement is, fittingly, a rigodon. The whole might be seen as a homage within a homage — something especially cherished by those who believe it wise to have plenty of saints in paradise.”

– Mirco Marchelli

Alzueta Gallery is pleased to present Comme un rigaudon, a new solo exhibition by Italian artist Mirco Marchelli (b. 1963, Novi Ligure), on view from November 19 to December 27 at 8 rue des Beaux-Arts, Paris.

Since the mid-1990s, Marchelli has developed a multidisciplinary practice that bridges painting, sculpture, ceramics, and music. A trained trumpeter and devoted opera lover, he draws no distinction between these fields; they merge and resonate as part of a single, ongoing exploration of rhythm, cadence, and vibration.

Rooted in a reimagined Italian tradition — from the Renaissance to Arte Povera and Baroque opera — Marchelli’s work resists easy classification. Neither purely painting nor strictly objects, his pieces open a space of resonance between disciplines. Using reclaimed materials such as old wood, wax, jute, and pigments, Marchelli creates hybrid forms that hover between painting, votive objects, and archaeological fragments. He begins with simple, everyday elements — pieces of wood, fabric, or paper — transforming them through the application of wax. This humble yet reverent gesture transfigures the material: cloth takes on the appearance of ceramic, a frame becomes an icon. The result is a body of work marked by memory and a quiet attentiveness to objects.

His work is not nostalgic but engages in a sensitive dialogue with time, transformation, and memory. The objects he chooses—often humble or worn—are treated with care, as if carrying traces of their past lives. Marchelli deliberately challenges the viewer’s expectations, creating works that feel firmly rooted in contemporary practice yet imbued with the patina of history, as if already marked by time’s passage.

Like the dance it is named after, the exhibition unfolds with a rhythm that is both free and playful. Marchelli composes a visual and tactile symphony, where objects bear witness to the passage of time while Baroque dance and music are reimagined in material form. Comme un rigaudon is an ode to joy and creative transmission, a celebration of the profound, vivid pleasure of making.