Show Dual Marta Mattioli & Radu Pandele

Marta Mattioli The User.Iteration

Catinca Tabacaru is pleased to announce Marta Mattioli’s participation in DUAL SHOW, displayed alongside Radu Pandele, the exhibition is hosted in the expansive venue of Scanteia+ within the historical House of Free Press, DUAL SHOW features two distinct solo exhibitions, creating a dynamic dialogue between the two artists. Expanding the ongoing inquiry into the ways technology redefines materiality, perception, and the body. This exhibition brings together a recent body of works by Marta Mattioli, first presented at eastcontemporary (Milan) in collaboration with Catinca Tabacaru Gallery (Bucharest).Engaging with both digital and traditional sculptural processes, Mattioli investigates the dissolution of form, the fragmentation of the human body, and the tensions between organic and mechanical matter. Her work reflects on how technological mediation reshapes not only physical structures but also our understanding of presence and identity. Through hybrid compositions that combine anatomical references with industrial metals and digital interfaces, the works on view propose speculative materialities — bodies suspended between the physical and the virtual. These fragmented forms do not suggest loss but transformation, a shift toward a new corporeality that is fluid, adaptive, and shaped by digital systems. By positioning the body within shifting technological landscapes, the exhibition examines the intersection of the biological and the artificial. Mattioli’s sculptures evoke an uncertain future in which human morphology is no longer singular or stable but distributed across multiple states of being. In doing so, they question the evolving boundaries of embodiment and material presence in an increasingly mediated world.

Radu Pandele Ouroboros

Catinca Tabacaru is pleased to announce Radu Pandele’s participation in DUAL SHOW, exhibited
alongside Marta Mattioli, the exhibition is hosted in the expansive venue of Scanteia+ within the historical House of Free Press, DUAL SHOW features two distinct solo exhibitions, creating a dynamic dialogue between the two artists. Ouroboros revolves around the ever-present graphic and symbolic element—the closed circle. A self-sufficient line. The central piece, Ouroboros, a modular snake made of shopping carts devouring its own tail, gives the exhibition its title. The carts are wrapped in a glossy black membrane of melted plastic, emphasizing the unsustainable hyper-consumption of the Plastic Age. A dynamic object that, through its wheels, has created its own gravitational force parallel to the planet. 8 billion people, all wanting everything. Aperpetuum mobile now brought to a halt. Directly opposite on the podium, the painting Pirouette in the Void presents a circle of skeletons spinning around a small negative hole embedded in the surface of the canvas. The work aims to illustrate the deterministic nature of the human condition—regardless of philosophy, faith, or ethics, we remain servants to the laws of physics. The series Heavy Butterflies depicts creatures stumbling on the ground, sabotaged by their own weight. Trapped between
life and death, they are shattered the moment they leave the comfort of the
habitable zone. The central sculpture, from which the entire black membrane overwhelming the podium emerges, Becoming Wan Hu, pays tribute to the greatest act of rebellion—the Chinese martyr Wan Hu from the 14th century. He was the first space pioneer who, upon discovering gunpowder, built a chair with fireworks in his naive ambition to be propelled toward the stars. His attempt ended in failure—he was burned by friction and thrown back to Earth, completing the closed circle. Yet, his ambition far outweighs his failure. In the studio, on the computer, on mural scaffolds — once the chair is built and the fuse is lit, there is a clear certainty that the artist will reach the stars. The ambition to overcome one’sown condition, to transcend earthly limitations, to defy the forces of physics, to stop time—all are present and visible. The fear of failure does not exist. However, life does not withstand extreme temperatures.