In Milan, the planetarium... artistic by Letizia Cariello

From January 21, 2022 BUILDINGBOX in Milan presents the first site-specific installation of Letizia Cariello’s solo exhibition, entitled Calendar - Nous, curated by Annette Hofmann.

The project investigates with successive interventions by the artist the concept of Nous, understood as a threshold: a door that opens the passage from an inner dimension to the outside, in space and time, and that materializes in BUILDINGBOX, visible to the public 24/7. The first work in the exhibition is Calendar - Nous / Chiron, asite-specific installation that consists of two steel discs, white wool and farrier nails installed in the box, painted with a blue and red pigment base and luminescent paint in the dark. As with the installations that follow, the work may undergo subsequent interventions throughout the duration of the exhibition.

The space of BUILDINGBOX thus becomes like a planetarium with midnight blue walls painted with photoluminescent paint, which will give off a lunar glow as the light goes down. On the surfaces, farrier nails and white woolen threads are arranged in a pattern inspired by the pattern of the constellation Chiron. Two mirror-polished steel discs attached to the walls evoke shapes somewhere between planets and parts of mechanical gears from the first industrial revolution.

“Chiron, benevolent centaur, forger of heroes, physician of the soul who cures others to cure himself of an incurable disease that will lead him to exchange his semi-divine nature for mortal nature, represents the cure of the generous heart that endlessly gives itself,” Letizia Cariello explains. “The audience is absorbed in an ’other’ space, in which an energy exchange takes place that, from the photoluminescent walls, runs on the wool, rotates and gravitates around the steel discs, wandering planets that emphasize the cyclical nature to the work. In the silence of the night the box shines with its own light, becoming itself wandering, and draws us to itself, becoming a door to a mysterious gravitational center.”

With Calendar - Nous, the artist explores the concept of Nous, which indicates, starting with Homer, the faculty of thought to understand an event, the intellect, understood as a door or passage to another dimension, which exceeds linear time to open a circular, spiritual one. Nous presents itself as a threshold that invites the audience to metaphorically cross boundaries and understand the interweaving of space, installation and time, becoming itself an integral part of the work and its relationships.

Central to the artist’s research are the themes of time and boundary. For years he has been working with the practice of embroidery and weaving to give tangible form to invisible ties, exploring the relationship between inner space and the outer world. The desire to intercept the material consistency of time is realized in the research and collection of its traces, made visible through the writing of calendars and the use of a red thread that unites and sews together objects, materials and spaces. In this stitching process, the artist brings different worlds together by relating them to each other. In Letizia Cariello’s poetics, Calendars in particular represent a form of meditation on time and its real existence.

Image: Letizia Cariello, Calendar - Nous / Chiron (2022; steel discs, white wool, farrier nails, photoluminescent paint, dimensions variable). Courtesy of BUILDINGBOX.

In Milan, the planetarium... artistic by Letizia Cariello

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