Raggiro

The force that generates us is expressed through our existence. It would be reductive to believe that a creative idea necessarily starts only from the brain. It is nature that expresses itself in the same way that a flower or a tree grows from the ground. You could say that the tree expresses itself through the way the branches move, but it is the force that drives nature. The tree is the visible moment that appears to our senses, but it is misleading to believe that it is the source of why everything is perpetuated in its cycle.

The word ‘Raggiro’, which gives this exhibition its title, is a polysemantic word in the Italian language. In this context, it refers to both the deception of nature itself and the material deception of the artist in the creative process. This evocative title highlights the complexity of the interaction between the essence of nature and the material manipulation by artists.

Through the presentation of works covering a wide range of visual languages, ‘Raggiro’ explores the concepts of danger, possibility, play and manipulation. The artist immerses himself in a creative process that challenges boundaries and explores the tensions between human control and nature’s rebellious response. The works on display embody a form of visual dialogue that reflects the changing and unpredictable essence of nature itself.

Hence Nicola Genovese‘s series “When Boundaries Burn”. Dangerous, erotic fruits with an individual character. A personality. They are in some ways reminiscent of still life compositions of the Venetian Baroque current to which the artist is not only connected by provenance but also by creative affinity.

Creativity that can be described as the ability to put together elements that were previously separate, in a new, original way, avoiding the usual, everyday patterns, to see known reality, through different ways, relate to the course of nature.

Nature, which through the materic deception suggests not only an almost maniacal repetition of the everyday, a sign of our times, but also the reversal of the state of things. Thus the purity of Melli Ink‘s ceramic lemons “Die Welt is aus den Fugen” with their joyful and vibrant colour, suggest in antithesis the possibility of destruction and chaos, reminding us in its scattered composition how much the world has lost its balance.

Peter Rogiers, who usually combines elements of the natural to create artificiality, expresses the material deception in the suggestion of a work that at first glance induces multiple interpretations in the figure. “The Screwdriver (Acapulco Screwdriver)”, an everyday object, emerging from the mixture of these natural elements is rendered to a mythological figure.

In the works of Jacopo Pischedda‘s Hive of the brave and of the weak series, there is a sacred element, dedicated to the warning of a possible future. Deception takes place through directness. Nature adapts to hostile conditions and creates a new identity. A new presence. Bees, the great workers and producers of good, build new hives inside radiators. The result is a practical dimension: wax and honey made of carbon monoxide.

This latter material, simultaneously artificial and gaseous in nature, is elevated to a celestial and spiritual vision. A glimpse of clouds composing the painting “Cloud Landscape I”.

The aspect of spirituality can also be found in the work “Ungraspable” by Valentina Pini. A central part of this work is a cast of the fruit called Buddha’s hand. By choosing this highly symbolic fruit (its name is a reference to the Mudras, symbolic hand gestures in Hinduism and Buddhism) which supports an apparently precarious glass structure, the artist emphasises its balancing value.

Marta Margnetti‘s work “Wisteria Drops” is located in a liminal dimension. Eating wisteria seeds (Wisteria Sinensis and W. Floribunda) causes a toxic reaction and a state of confusion with leucocytosis. A magical practice already used by the sorceresses of the ancient Greek and Latin world. Inside these pretty pods is poison. The possible assonance between the words Wisteria, Hysteria and Witch underlines the link with the world of mystery and danger.

The human being stands before nature, as our consciousness stands before the dream. The tendency to differentiate ourselves from the rest of nature, which has characterised us, seems to have followed a similar evolution to that of the ego in differentiating itself from the unconscious.

Una Szeemann‘s work, “Virare al tatto” consists of patterns created by scattering sand on a thin sheet of glass and tracing designs with her hands and arms. These traces often represent something invisible, something unconscious. In this sense, the artist explores the psyche by transforming her gestures into abstract, natural volumes and spaces. On the same suggestive ground stands “Leaves on a Thread”. The basis of this work is an astonishing plant: Welwitschia Mirabilis. Its unusual characteristic (to which the adjective refers) is its exceptional longevity; some specimens reach over 2000 years. The plant is considered a living fossil and so Szeemann proposes it in leather, as if to underline its surprising, alien and at the same time erotic organicity.

The poet Giacomo Leopardi already observed that nature, although omnipresent, cannot be fully understood, because whenever we want to understand its intentions, it has become other than what we expect to find. Indeed, nature is the alter ego of ourselves, of what is rooted deep inside and which is incomprehensible to us. Through material deception, the artist aspires to a new natural and sensory experience. A resolution.

Lorenzo Emanuele Metzler

With works by
Nicola Genovese, Melli Ink, Marta Margnetti, Valentina Pini, Jacopo Pischedda, Peter Rogiers, Una Szeemann

Opening hours Fri 11 am – 6 pm, and by prior arrangement

Exhibition Duration 04 – 25 November 2023

www.grieder-contemporary.com

Location:
Grieder Contemporary Projects
Borgovico33 / Via Borgo Vico 33
22100 Como
Italy