SHANNON EBNER
AUTO BODY COLLISION

Fondazione Memmo is proud to announce Auto Body Collision, an exhibition by the American artist, Shannon Ebner curated by Cloé Perrone. Auto Body Collision presents a new project based on the notion of collision – on isolated incidents in which two or more moving bodies exert force on each other. The exhibition is the result of the artist’s Roman residency at Palazzo Ruspoli, historical venue of the foundation. 

The exhibition opens March, 13th and will be on view until June, 27th 2014 at Palazzo Ruspoli. Admission is free.

Shannon Ebner’s work exists at the boundaries of photography and sculpture, architecture and image, seeingreading and writing. For Auto Body Collision, the artist writes a photographic sentence in long form throughout the Palazzo Ruspoli’s exhibition spaces. For Ebner, the photographic sentence is a way of writing that makes use of the material of images and the material of language in order to produce a system of language which exacts itself in the spatialized form of exhibition.

Ebner’s text for Auto Body Collision is crafted from the vernacular language of ‘auto body collision centers’, places where engines with bodies (automobiles) are brought for repair following collisions. The text utilizes terminology found in advertising copy as a new vehicle for expression: ‘Alignment (ALLINEAMENTO), speed (VELOCITÀ, SVELTEZZA, TEMPO DI APERTURA) & suspension (SOSPENSIONE), exhaust systems and large frame straightening for delicate exotic repairs’ are all services provided by collision centers worldwide, including Super Auto Collision Inc, American Collision Inc, People Collision Shop Inc, Belle Isle Collision, Motor City Auto & Collision, Four Way Collision & Rstprfng, Maxx Collision, Onyx Collision, Italia Collision, Xclusive Collision, King Collision, Knockers Collision, Marx’s Collision, 3 D Collision, Luxury Collision, Campus Collision, Checker Collision, Kruise Collision, Six Mile Collision, Spectrum Collision, Uni-body Collision, Federal Collision. 

Influenced by her recent residency in Rome, the project locates its ‘first collision’ in the Eternal City in order to bring new readings to the meaning of recuperation, re-assemblage and loss. Ebner photographed junkyards on Rome’s GRA (Grande Raccordo Anulare) or “great ring road” on the outskirts of the city, in a bid to exit the beauty and decadence of the city’s ancient sites for the graveyards and oil fields of the imagination. For the exhibition Ebner will show photographs from the GRA alongside video, large scale letters and discarded language parts, in what will be the first iteration of a long term project. For Auto Body Collision, Ebner turns the mechanics of reproduction and destruction into an urgent mode of address.

Shannon Ebner (b. 1971, New Jersey) lives and works in Los Angeles. She holds a BA from Bard College and an MFA from Yale University School of Art.Recent exhibitions include the Hammer Museum (2011), PS1 MoMA (2007) and group exhibitions such as Things Words and Consequences, Moscow Museum of Modern Art (2012), Ecstatic Alphabets/Heaps of Language, MoMA, New York (2012), ILLUMInations, 54th Venice Biennale, Venice (2011), The Spectacular of Vernacular, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2011), 6th Berlin Biennale of Contemporary Art, Berlin (2010) and the Whitney Biennial, New York (2008). Ebner’s work is also included in numerous public collections such as The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, Guggenheim Museum, New York, Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY, The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Israel, among others. Upcoming projects and exhibitions include Kaufmann Repetto, Milan, The High Line, NY and a solo exhibition at North Miami MOCA (2015).

Fondazione Memmo - Arte Contemporanea is a project initiated by Fabiana Marenghi Vaselli e Anna d’Amelio in 2012 which introduces a new exhibition program dedicated to contemporary art. This is the third exhibition, following the solo shows of Sara VanDerBeek and Sterling Ruby.