Belgium – "La Vie matérielle" by Fondazione Palazzo Magnani
On last December 8, in Brussels, opening of the exhibition La Vie matérielle, ‘a dialogue between 12 Italian and Belgian artists on the link between art and life’.
It is the Belgian version of an important production by the Fondazione Palazzo Magnani in Reggio Emilia, La Vita Materiale – a project by eight contemporary artists curated by Marina Dacci in 2018 for the spaces of Palazzo da Mosto that has been redesigned for CENTRALE in collaboration with its artistic director Carine Fol.
The project was resumed and integrated with works by four Belgian artists who have extended and interpreted the Italian proposal, producing a constant dialogue between ordinary everyday life (of which the body is a crucial element) and the inner, intimate life, torn between its deepest aspirations and reality.
By reusing, hybridising, diverting or decontextualizing organic materials and everyday objects and giving them a new life that transcends their usual use, the artists in the exhibition bridge the divide between artistic disciplines.
Despite their very different approaches and perceptions, what Chiara Camoni, Alice Cattaneo, Elena El Asmar, Serena Fineschi, Ludovica Gioscia, Loredana Longo, Claudia Losi, and Sabrina Mezzaqui have in common is the use of often modest materials that are traditionally associated with crafts.
They are joined by Léa Belooussovitch, Gwendoline Robin, Lieve Van Stappen, Arlette Vermeiren, four Belgian artists whose artistic practices are close to those of their Italian counterparts. All of them seek a ‘refuge’ for the ‘self’ in the world, inspired the regeneration of objects and materials that are dear to them.
Through provocative or questioning narratives, fragile or energetic stagings, these very diverse works (assemblages, videos, drawings, sculptures, installations) blend the finished and the unfinished, the knowing and the sensing. The exhibition integrates and explores several senses, in particular vision and touch, through a journey that takes the viewer inside a kind of emotional and mental spider’s web, hoping that at the end of the journey, we will have gained new perspectives on how we perceive and read our shared ‘material world’, and the link that art allows us to create between our body and our inner world.
The vernissage of the exhibition – which is part of the 17th Day of Contemporary Art promoted by AMACI – was attended by the Councillor for Culture and Gender Equality of Reggio Emilia Municipality Annalisa Rabitti, the Director of Fondazione Palazzo Magnani Davide Zanichelli, and the curator of the artistic project Marina Dacci.
The collaboration between Fondazione Palazzo Magnani and CENTRALE for contemporary art – started with the presentation of Sophie Whettnall’s works in Reggio Emilia on occasion of latest 'European Photography Festival' – will continue in the coming months on research and innovation topics that both institutions recognize as urgent and current, starting from the connections between art, wellness and health.