DERIVA - Duo show with Francesca Mussi
Residency and exhibition in Chiesa di San Celso, Milano, 2019.
Residency and exhibition in Chiesa di San Celso, Milano, 2019.
“For this show, we took elements of the place’s history, such as miracles and biblical facts to create site specific art works in one of Milan’s oldest churches.”
Installation “Littoral”, 12 pannels, fabric, wood, 203 x 77 cm each.
1-LITTORAL
LITTORAL is an installation of 12 panels that represents the map of the liguria’s coast line in which the two saints (San Celso and San Nazaro) fled from the roman persecution during the first century and escaped from death by walking on the water.
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LITTORAL is an installation of 12 panels that represents the map of the liguria’s coast line in which the two saints (San Celso and San Nazaro) fled from the roman persecution during the first century and escaped from death by walking on the water.
The panels are produced with fabric from which we subtracted the cotton’s pigment using various layers of bleach in order to recreate to cost line’s visual. The San Celso church was famous for hosting a painting of the virgin Mary with the baby Jesus, covered up by a piece of fabric, which was moved to the church next door, Santa Maria degli miracoli. During the bubonic plague, this painting came to life and another miracle narrates that the virgin put aside the fabric with one arm and presented the baby to a public of 300 people with the other. We decided to use fabric and to bleach it also referring to the clothes of migrants (such as San Celso) that loose their pigment by the action of the sun, salt and moon, during their desperate travel across the Mediterranean sea
2-CAMMINATA SULLE ACQUE
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Camminata Sulle Acque (Walk On The Water) is an installation in two parts. The first is a 45 meters long by 1m50 roll of fabric installed vertically, which was used to pack the chewing gum sculptures and bleached so that the folding of the fabric creates an abstract visual. The second part is a video in which the two artists manipulate the fabric entirely from one end to another, with a regular movements recreating a path such as a treadmill on suggesting the path the two saints took to walk on the Mediterranean sea.
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link to the video
3-PERMUTAZIONE
Permutazione is an installation of gum prints fixed on stones. The image comes from photographies of the light and shadow composition taken inside the altar centered in the apse of Spazio San Celso. The stones are ones which were kept from the original construction of the place after the recent renovation.
4-CHEWING GUM
CHEWING GUMS is a set of sculptures in the shape of already chewed chewing gums, using various techniques and dimensions. It’s in an analogy of form and aesthetic with the bodies of the two martyrs (San Celso and San Nazaro) which were found headless in the 4th century by San Ambrogio that the two artist create these sculptures and install them outside the front doors of the church, in the garden on the ground, placed as if they had stranded on the beach, and also as bodies seeking for asylum.
CHEWING GUMS is a set of sculptures in the shape of already chewed chewing gums, using various techniques and dimensions. It’s in an analogy of form and aesthetic with the bodies of the two martyrs (San Celso and San Nazaro) which were found headless in the 4th century by San Ambrogio that the two artist create these sculptures and install them outside the front doors of the church, in the garden on the ground, placed as if they had stranded on the beach, and also as bodies seeking for asylum.
Gum is a product that is bought, consumed and thrown away in a record time, but here, as art objects they are studied, looked at and valued.
all of the photos have been taken by Fabrizio Stipari