Reverie
IL CORPO DEI SOGNI (The body of dreams)
Milan – Basilica of San Celso
From 8 to 31 May 2022 the Basilica of San Celso in Milan welcomes “Il corpo dei sogni”, Reverie’s solo show, curated by Paola Ugolini.
Inauguration on 7 May at 6.00 pm
The artist’s field of research has for several years been that of the dream as a collective place of perception, where common fears and obsessions are shown without veils and where the body is free to express itself.
But what then remains of these dreams, ineffable and subtle matter?
The question, so topical in the art world and persistent in the artist’s work, will find an answer in this solo show, which represents the final phase of her intense production dedicated to this cycle on the oneiric.
The word “body” used in the title is the key to interpreting the works exhibited at San Celso which are both the synthesis of her performances and the material representation of images that are born in an immaterial dimension. For Reverie the dreams, a faithful mirror of our subconscious, are more concrete than the phenomenal reality since we cannot lie.
Reverie with her works makes the deepest layers of our conscience concrete and tangible to grasp and restore the fragility of the human being both in relationships with her peers and with the environment.
The artworks that dot the medieval space inside the church of San Celso are impossible hourglasses, angel wings, pop-colored spine, mirrors and embroidery. The materials used – iron, wax, fabric, ceramic, and glass – reflect both the double aspect of strength and fragility that characterizes the dream dimension and the creative tension necessary to transform into permanent what by its nature is impermanent. In the artist’s vision, death is a social exorcization that becomes a desire for life and not just an object crystallization of the transience of existence.
Her artworks, exhibited in San Celso, are poetic conceptual counterpoints to tell the fragility of our bodies suspended between the tragic and beauty of existence.
In this exhibition, her research also develops on the evocation of flight, between the aspiration of freedom and the impassable limit of the body, through the fragments of a “Icaro contemporaneo” (Contemporary Icarus): a queer and post-human female figure with two trans-radial prostheses in place of the arms that choose the courage of life overcoming difficulties and sufferings.
Three artworks are dedicated to this Icarus with a punk soul: a red wax sculpture of two large angel wings with metal inserts (hand-forged nails, symbol of the weight of violence) made starting from the live cast of the back of the artist, installed on the central altar; a single wing, of yellow wax, lying inside a completely open geometric structure covered with mirrors; and the ready-made of a parachute with the satin insert embroidered with the opening sentence of the “biography” written by the artist in dedication to her Icarus. The altar is surrounded by a series of thirteen “Clessidre senza tempo” (Timeless Hourglasses), created specifically for the exhibition, which contain symbols related to the memento mori theme. The exhibition is completed by five “Oggetti da sogno” (Dream objects), or elements extrapolated from the artist’s personal dreams (in this case nightmares of illness) and materialized in ceramic, which Reverie has transformed into symbolic anatomies.
Reverie’s works are a constant exhortation never to censor oneself to find oneself in front of one’s unacknowledged or unspeakable authenticity.
“Il corpo dei sogni” Reverie’s personal exhibition at the Basilica of San Celso in Milan, curated by Paola Ugolini, was born from the collaboration with the LAQ-lartquetidien association, Galleria Alessandro Albanese and the patronage of the Municipality of Milan.
Ph credits: Letizia Mugri