LOS ANGELES, CA.- Raid Projects Gallery presents Ti Voglio Bene – From Italy With Love, curated by Gabi Scardi. Goodwill, Italian strategic consulting firm for the cultural fundraising, in cooperation with the Italian Cultural Institute of Los Angeles and GAI-Giovani Artisti Italiani, bringing the work of eight Italian artists (Claudia Losi, Elisabeth Hoelzl, Greta Frau, Emilio Fantin, Gea Casolaro, Lorenza Lucchi Basili, Sabrina Mezzaqui and Cesare Pietroiusti) to Los Angeles for the first time, is proud to present Ti Voglio Bene - From Italy with Love.

The project: Presenting eight Italian artists who engage with issues of contextualization and its relationship to reality. Encompassing both analytic and poetic approaches their work explores the subtle dynamics of economics (Pietroiusti), social and architectural relationships (Fantin, Hoelzl & Lucchi Basili), history (Casolaro), nature (Losi), time (Mezzaqui) and memory (Frau). Curated by Gabi Scardi.

Lorenza Lucchi Basili- With the intention of de-contextualizing the functional elements of architecture, Basili's work focuses on the photographic documentation of elements within urban spaces. Her work is frequently accompanied by self-composed sound tracks and has been exhibited extensively in the US, Asia and Europe. Including at the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, the Fiftieth Venice Biennale, the Second Valencia Biennale, Kunst Merano Arte and with the United Net-works Mobile Archive.

Gea Casolaro- Always concerned with the displacement of meaning between reality and representation, Casolaro approaches the image as actual physical place. Currently living and working in Rome, Casolaro has exhibited her projects at, among many others, the Venice Biennale, VI Biennale di Fotografia; Fondazione Ado Furlan; the Cultural Center of Trevi; Galerie Makus Richter, Potsdam and the Italian Institutes of Culture in Prague, Rabat and Cairo.

Emilio Fantin- A constant for Bologna-based artist Fantin is the idea of connection and its absence, which he uses to create projects that focus on imaginative power rather than on the object or image itself. One could say that his works - sculptural and architectural projects and interactive installations with accompanying musical scores - function as devices to see what does not appear. They have been widely exhibited internationally, including at the 45th, 48th and 49th Venice Biennales; the Laure Genillard Gallery, London; Art In General, NY and the Galleria d'Arte Moderna, Bologna.

Greta Frau- Who Greta Frau is remains a mystery. She never appears to the public and it seems impossible to arrange an interview with her. We do know, however, that she is a painter with a single subject - the companions she calls 'trances' who emerge to her through a state of psychic dissociation - and that she has exhibited her portraits at, among others, the Sciuti Palace, Sassari; the Trevi Flash Art Museum, Trevi; the Museum of Tortolì and Massimo Carasi Arte Contemporanea in Mantova.

Elisabeth Hoelzl - Working across a wide range of media Hölzl explores those transit places and public spaces where ephemeral events and accidental encounters occur. Born in Meran Italy 1962, the artist studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts of Bologna and has exhibited widely in Europe, including at MOCA, Geneva; Neue Stadtgalerie, Germany and the ArtSound Music Festival, Italy. Ti Voglio Bene represents the first showing of her work in the United States.

Claudia Losi - Losi's stitched and embroidered sculptures, most usually made from gray woolen fabric, navigate between fascination with the mysteries of nature on the one hand and the austerity of scientific data on the other. Currently resident in Piacenza, she is co-founder of Studio Italiana di Geopoetica (with poets Francesco Benozzo and Matteo Meschiari) and has exhibited internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including X Biennale Internazionale per la Fotographia, Turin; Museo di Arte Contemporanea di Trento and the Italian Institute of Culture, Washington.

Sabrina Mezzaqui - As if, in the repetition of amorphous gestures, things might acquire substance while retaining their natural tendency to disappear, Mezzaqui's videos and installations waver continually between presence and disappearance, obsession and tenderness. The artist lives and works in Marzabotto and her projects have been exhibited most recently at P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, NY; Museo d'Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bolzano; Galleria Continua, San Gimignano and the Trevi Flash Art Museum, Trevi.

Cesare Pietroiusti - Artist and psychiatrist Pietroiusti is fascinated by paradoxical situations hidden in ordinary acts - thoughts that come to mind without a reason, small worries and quasi-obsessions that are usually considered too insignificant to become a matter of analysis. His aim is to infiltrate and undermine settled habits and systems and to survey possible alternatives. He is the author of Non-functional Thoughts - one hundred useless, parasite or incongruous ideas that can be made by anyone as art projects - and his 'thoughts' have been executed and exhibited at, among others, Democracy! (RCA, London) and One Hundred Things That Are Certainly Not Art (Platform, Finland).

Raid Projects is a not for profit artist-run project space and curatorial organization that is dedicated to promoting the exchange of cultural products and ideas through various exhibition models on a regional, national and international basis. The projects are created by both emerging and established contemporary artists and they encompass all areas of contemporary practice, including painting, drawing, sculpture, film, video, new media, digital, installation and performance works.