CHIARA CAMONI: FORRA, FIORAME, FOGLIAME. MONDO DI SOPRA, MONDO DI SOTTO. E PICCOLE CREATURE

curated by Cecilia Canziani and Ilaria Gianni

13 aprile – 13 giugno

Chiara Camoni's works are a synthesis of the natural and emotional landscape from which they derive; they arise from the processing of raw materials collected in the artist's garden or in the surrounding countryside but are also the result of a sharing of methods and reflections. Her practice recovers an idea of widespread authorship, of choral work that contributes to the generation of a collective memory, of a common history.

Camoni sacralizes family gestures and ordinary circumstances, building a system of relationships based on the analogy between art and life, an ambiguity that permeates the artist's own production and that allows her plates, vases, and fabrics to simultaneously acquire the status of objects of common use and works of art. It is an archaeological attitude to recognize aesthetic qualities in the artifact starting from ritual functions, but it is also the ability to preserve the sedimentati on of meaning by eluding limiting categorizations.

For IUNO, Chiara Camoni carries out precisely this perspective duplication, outlining a project that intends to reflect on the interpretative possibilities and performative potential of everyday life, starting from the analysis and experience of two usual actions such as walking in the city and dining in company.

The first investigation tool is therefore a journey through the streets of Rome led by Michele Tocca, artist and friend of Chiara. From the Mausoleum of Augustus we proceed towards another famous imperial burial, Castel Sant’Angelo, to then reach the seat of IUNO. The walk is an opportunity to introduce and consider the idea of Selvatico(the wild and untamed), our word of the year, and to open new horizons of meaning on urban landscapes so familiar they are now the object of an apathetic gaze. The forest, the garden, and the very act of walking are then at the center of a series of readings, carried out in the IUNO headquarters and designed to deepen the suggestions derived from the path just followed. The passage from the outside of the garden to the inside of the house is the prerequisite for the establishment of a space, that of sharing, described by Illich as "personal, but never exclusive." A threshold, crossed which one shares in the definition of a group, never elitist, yet in a certain sense privileged, because it constitutes a community.

The banquet represents the last phase of the project, the consolidation of that "spirit of friendship" generated by the shared experience. The meal also allows the experience an unprecedented mode of artistic enjoyment. On this occasion, the dishes created by the artist will be used as food containers and then exhibited as real works of art. The boundary bet ween artistic and practical function is therefore not delineated; the same formal characteristics of the dishes and a certain difficulty in their use ensure their continuous change of status.
The artifacts thus fall within a performative dimension that is the cornerstone of this research, and more generally, of Chiara Camoni's poetics.

Download the text of the walk here 

Seminar: April 12, 6 pm - 8 pm. Meeting point: Ponte degli Angeli, in front of the entrance of the Parco della Mole Adriana.
Banquet: Places are limited to 16 guests. Reservation required at info@iunoiuno.it by April 3.
Exhibition: April 13 - June 13 - Monday, Wednesday and Friday by appointment.

Testo critico: Giulia Gaibisso

Foto copertina: Chiara Camoni, Piatti, 2021, gres smaltato con cenere vegetale e sabbia, stampa vegetale su seta, dimensioni variabili, dettaglio dell’installazione
Courtesy SpazioA, photo by Camilla Maria Santini

Photo: Sebastiano Luciano