Luccicanza. Di fiori e di filo, di pietra e di terra, di pelle e di radice (Shining. Of flowers and thread, of rock and clay, of leather and root) is an exhibition of work by Chiara Camoni commissioned by Fondazione Zegna for Casa Zegna. It sprang from a profound dialog between artistic practice, the territory and community.
Just a few weeks after the opening of the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia, where the artist represents Italy with the project Con te con tutto and for which ZEGNA is the main sponsor, the exhibition stems from a relationship that has developed over time between Camoni’s artistic practice and the landscape of Oasi Zegna.
Curated by Ilaria Bonacossa, the exhibition offers an inhabitable landscape, an environment in which sculpture, weaving, ceramics and natural materials are entwined in a pattern of relations that are reflections of the relationship between the human body, the environment and memories of places.
The very title of the exhibition suggests a sensory and stratified dimension: shining is a property of certain materials, an intermittent glitter emanating from the surface of things. In Camoni’s work, this shining is not only visual but symbolic, stemming from the encounter between different elements – flowers, fibers, minerals, clay – and their continual process of transformation, as if every material possessed a spark waiting to be revealed by the act and for the duration of the work.
Camoni’s work is based in fact on a direct relationship with the materials and processes she uses.
The exhibition is completed by the re-installation of the work Senza titolo, Stabkarte (2014) in the chapel of San Rocco in Trivero, composed by a mass of threads hanging on a wall, made up of hundreds of tiny forms, all shaped by hand, in different earth colors.
Material, landscape, relations
The exhibition is designed to dialog with the architecture of the old greenhouse created by Pietro Porcinai and subsequently converted into an exhibition facility. Suspended between domestic interiors and the outdoor landscape, this place is the ideal working context for Camoni, who has for years been probing the zones of intersection between nature and culture.
The installation is made up of various elements that together create a welcoming environment that is also somewhat alienating. The ceramics – clay glazed with ash and minerals gathered in certain significant places in Oasi Zegna – give us a sensory reproduction of the local geography. Fired at high temperatures, the minerals used here vitrify, so the resulting color is a veritable physical transposition of the landscape.
The exhibits spring from this tension between natural and constructed. The vases, figures, mats and textile surfaces are made with materials coming from the surrounding land: clays, minerals, vegetable fibers and yarns from Zegna Wool Factory.
The project highlights a fundamental aspect of Camoni’s practice: the collective dimension of work. Many of the works were in fact inspired by her relations with the artisans, weavers and other people with whom she regularly collaborates.
This relational dimension surprisingly resonates with the philosophy embraced by Fondazione Zegna, which has always promoted ongoing dialog between culture, territory and community.
Visiting Information
Every Sunday from May 24th to November 22nd
From 11 am to 5 pm
Special openings: Tuesday, June 2nd. Open daily in August.
Admission:
€7 (Reduced €5). Free for Zegna Group employees, children up to 14 years old, and holders of the Piedmont Museum Pass.
Guided tours:
Sundays and holidays, 11:00 am and 3:30 pm. Cost: €10 including admission (Reduced €5).
