Stefano Arienti's works, almost all previously unpublished, populate the museum and garden of Villa Carlotta

On Saturday, May 13, 2023, Stefano Arienti ’s solo exhibition entitled Quadrante solare, curated by Fulvio Chimento in collaboration with Carlotta Minarelli, and organized by Ente Villa Carlotta with the support of Associazione Controcorrente, will open at the Villa Carlotta Museum in Tremezzina, on Lake Como. The exhibition will remain open until September 10, 2023, and will involve the rooms of the Villa Carlotta Museum and Botanical Garden, presenting nearly forty works, almost all of them previously unseen.

A sundial can be defined as a “sun dial,” which exercises its function thanks to the relationship between light and shadow through the presence of a stylus. The dial/surface becomes the space of action of art, while the solar source represents the artistic and intellectual inspiration.

Since 2012, Stefano Arienti has been creating cycles of works, different in technique and language, that revolve around the concept of the “sundial,” and have led to the birth of numerous exhibitions, the first of which in 2017, in the Villa Croce Museum in Genoa. As works conceived by the artist, the Sundials are drawn with light, at a window of the house or studio, with a technique refined over the years, which allows Arienti to translate on paper, plaster or dust cloth (through his own hand), the light variations by means of color. However, since 2022 the “sundials” have taken on a marked environmental connotation, as in the case of the interventions made at the industrial site of Crespi d’Adda (Bergamo) and in the Mirad’Or space in Pisogne (Brescia).

The exhibition Quadrante solare at Villa Carlotta is intended to be conceived as a calibrated transposition of some concepts already belonging to his production: the Meridiane take on a mostly environmental dimension, while the idea of linear design is translated into installations conceived as an alignment of blooms and objects; some interventions also stand out, manifesting the artist’s intention in wanting to capture the instantaneous light of day. On the occasion of Solar Quadrant, for the first time Stefano Arienti applies his modus operandi to a purely naturalistic context.

The artist has imagined a comprehensive exhibition project that offers a broad overview of his modus operandi by involving very different environments, both inside and outside the villa. In the study phases of Solar Quadrant, Arienti made site visits during each season of the year, which allowed him to grasp the changes related to the natural context, while for the production and installation phases he relied on the collaboration of Villa Carlotta’s staff of gardeners and technicians.

To compose his interventions in the garden, Arienti uses plants, flowers, books, everyday objects, mowings, roots, and reused material: the presence of the artistic interventions triggers a kaleidoscopic vision with the blooms present in the park, among which the colors of azaleas, camellias and rhododendrons stand out. Some of the installations are placed in the garden’s major transit areas: the work titled Linea is an alignment of dragon gardenias and suggests the presence of a natural sundial in the flowerbed where the presence of an imposing Chilean palm dominates; a second installation, Riflesso, made with colored ribbons arranged in a sunburst pattern evokes the light of a solar spectrum, towering over the large pool that conveys water for the villa’s irrigation; in the Bamboo Garden, the artist sets up the work Nest of Books, a solid structure of circular shape composed of books and plant material, which by its shapes can refer to nests. But interventions are also arranged in the less visited areas of the garden to offer a novel view of the park and Lake Como. Thus, Arienti intervenes in the upper area of the olive grove by setting up in a small barn some Sundials made on dust cloth (tracing the shadows of branches and bushes present at Villa Carlotta), and, at the same time, in the lower area of the old garden, at the Dwarfs’ Fountain, where he sets up the Algae, formed by cutouts obtained with plastic material that take on the appearance of threadlike plant organisms, which descend from the fountain to follow the movement of the plants. It is precisely the presence of water, as a symbol of rebirth, that is one of the recurring components connecting the interventions made by Arienti within the botanical garden.

In the collections on the ground floor of the Villa Carlotta Museum are historicized works: the Turbines, sculptures made through minimal folds of printed paper to form spirals of different sizes, as well as a series of prints of famous paintings that the artist elaborates in a contemporary key by intervening with pongo on the surface of the image. Among the latter works is the diptych Poppies and Daisies (from Van Gogh) and Large Vase of Flowers (from Renoir) in the exhibition. The three elements are arranged in a line on a marble shelf found in the Salone dei Marmi, while the Turbines are placed on the top of a mirror in the Sala di Palamede, which houses Antonio Canova’s famous sculpture that has been in Villa Carlotta’s collections since 1818.

Inside the Gallery, in the rooms that once belonged to Princess Carlotta, Arienti arranges microcinille rugs on the floor, designed specifically to fit into the context, thus creating a camouflage effect with the furniture and memorabilia in the 19th-century rooms. In addition, on the walls of the large gallery on the second floor, the artist arranges works on crumpled paper of different formats, which feature photographic images captured during the inspections carried out at the villa. The poster paper, specially processed by the artist in a random manner, creates a textural effect that seems to transform the prints into paintings. The central space of the gallery hosts a second alignment, after the one made outdoors near the Chilean palm tree, composed of furniture already on site, which are appreciated for their features and which support indoor plants and flowers, showing how the continuous dialogue between the artistic and natural spheres is one of the dominant features of the exhibition.

For info: www.villacarlotta.it

Image: Stefano Arienti, Algae (2016-2022; cut plastic bags). Photo by Walter Carrera

Stefano Arienti's works, almost all previously unpublished, populate the museum and garden of Villa Carlotta

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