Flowers, branches, clay, stones, terracotta, and ceramics. Animals, souls, sisters. From February 15 to July 21, 2024, Pirelli HangarBicocca‘s Shed takes on the appearance of an idyllic and mystical Italian garden with symmetrical pathways. A site-specific installation that encapsulates the body of works by Chiara Camoni, constantly in motion, change, and evolution. A potentially infinite and never solitary walk. A poetic dance, much like the title of the exhibition. Chiamate a raduno. Sorelle. Falene e fiammelle. Ossa di leonesse, pietre e serpentesse. (Literally: Call to Gathering. Sisters. Moths and flames. Lioness bones, stones, and serpents.) An artist’s composition, a kind of spell that aims to invite access to the space «with vigilant eyes embracing a sense of wonder and amazement,» emphasized Lucia Aspesi – co-curator along with Fiammetta Griccioli – during the press conference on Tuesday, February 13. In particular, the ten Sisters engage in a dialogue with the viewer, carriers of a strong sense of collectivity and feminine energy stemming from their participatory genesis. The artist usually creates the works with her own children and friends, artists and non-artists, during extended and profound sessions that take place in the small Alpine village where Camoni lives. «A dance with other people, without the need to know where it is going,» the artist described the shared work sessions, which, for her, are like «the delivery of a thought that then continues in sharing.»
A walk between the sacred and the everyday
The poetic and mystical component anticipated by the exhibition’s title is once again tangible at the entrance. A portal in Lecce stone depicting two lionesses, facing each other, marks the viewer’s passage from the external environment to the radiant space of Chiara Camoni’s sculptural garden. Diametrically opposed to the portal, titled Leonesse, are two other explicitly animal figures, two aluminum dogs, a male and a female, joined by the same base and therefore impassable. While on one hand, the artist welcomes the viewer by evoking a certain sacredness, on the other, she connects them with everyday life and familiarity, recurring sentiments of the exhibition.
Once through the entrance, the viewer is beckoned by the Sisters to wander through the space without a predefined path. Sculptural entities with zoomorphic appearances, charged with different energies and created through participatory means, populate the space and dictate the narrative rhythm of the exhibition, establishing a lively relationship with the viewer. The artist describes the sisters as true animated beings, speaking of them as subjects with distinct personalities and expressive freedom that “demand” the artist’s completion and realization. Consider, for example, Burning Sister, the only immaterial sister and the only video in the exhibition. Camoni composed the work with flowers and leaves on a beach in Greece, only to set it on fire. «She is the fiercest of the Sisters, as if she had requested to be burned. What you see in the video is not a sacrifice but the moment of her ultimate fulfillment, the moment she disappears,» explained the artist. «In the background, there is the sea of Greece, which culturally embraces our origins but is also a sea that today evokes a sense of tragedy.» With the ashes of Burning Sister, Chiara Camoni then glazed the ceramics contained in the sideboard on which the video is projected.
Fairy tale meets everyday life
An important aspect of Chiara Camoni’s exhibition is the tension between the artwork and the artisanal artifact. In this sense, it is evident how the fairy-tale element intrudes into the artist’s daily life, and their encounter is then transposed into her works. Il Carrozzone is perhaps the most illustrative example. It is a structure shaped like a small caravan reminiscent of a traveling theater. The spaces are constructed by assembling reclaimed objects, arranged to accommodate memorabilia and books donated by collaborators and friends of the artist, forming the artwork. On the other hand, even the silk drapes explicitly express this encounter between the magical and the natural. A series of architecturally shaped structures, sometimes appearing as doors to pass through and other times as impassable circular traps, feature light curtains depicting «sprites that appear in space and react to our passage,» as explained by the artist. What we see are natural prints that synthesize the landscape the artist lives and experiences. These images emerge from the natural imprint of leaves, flowers, and plant materials collected and composed by Camoni. The entire exhibition is thus a succession of presences, eyes, mouths, entities – such as I Tre Serpenti – that exist in the artist’s everyday and domestic sphere but acquire a mystical dimension dictated by the encounter between the ritualistic process, instinctual approach, and simplicity of gesture. A dance between ancient knowledge and everyday knowledge, in which nature plays a prominent role.
Courtesy Chiara Camoni, Pirelli HangarBicocca
