Sottogiudeccathe new contemporary space a Reggio Calabria, Saturday 27 April at 7.00 pm, presents a preview of the solo exhibition of Elisa Schiavina by title ‘Ludo Via’.
Elisa Schiavina – emerging artist based in Milan – introduces the playful device as a tool for exploration and interactionwith an approach that can be traced back to his studies in Psychology and the experience gained in the pedagogical field (games but not toys).
His iconic ones walking carouselswhich float like painting extended in space, are assembled with scraps of fabric and recycled elements: iridescent in the light and soft to the touch, they activate a ‘play area’ which is at the same time a safe place (house/tent/hut) but in perpetual motion (carousel/circus/circus). “A merry-go-round always makes a song, or does the song make the merry-go-round? Certainly the chasing of certain cats with certain mice, with certain snakes and again with certain cats, seems like a merry-go-round to me. The world falls, the earth falls (but not always).” E. Schiavina
‘Ludo Via’ it is conceived as aante litteram training experience, which takes place inside a forbidden amusement park. The invitation evokes the advertisement of a festive circus setting, animated by a colorful tent suspended on a large pink bow, while a licentious cat-woman appears in the gesture of ‘to catch a hula hoop’. The scene is surrounded circularly by a large snake with a forked tongue, palingenetic seal (πάλιν-γένεσις, ‘born again’) of the inexhaustible universal energy, but also an indication of possible pitfalls and temptations. This journey of knowledge, apparently easy to access, hides a complex symbolic plot. Delight without commitment is a fruit granted only in childhood, when it is permissible for boredom, curiosity and excitement to encourage the exploration of one’s instincts through freedom of imagination. In adulthood, the practice of free play intended as a toy, whim, amusement, is conventionally considered futile and unedifying. But if it is true that the eternal tension between Eros and Thanatos is always linked to the desire for power, then what would happen if adults could thus dilute their deepest impulses?
According to the Lacan’s theories, pleasure as enjoyment, that is, maximum density of possession, cannot exist outside the body that enjoys itself, the only signifier and signified. The concept of divertissement as a source of desire fulfillment finds space in the story through images of a childish and playful spirit, which discovers the sexual organ as a toy. In the series entitled Polaroid, the artist uses a direct and explicit frontal shot, mitigated by the use of a honey watercolor mixture. In these humid atmospheres, pubertal bodies blossom in an outpouring of emotions, in the vanguard of a sweetened and throbbing autoeroticism. Feelings that are not yet mature, as immature as a pencil case full of highlighters, blend into the leitmotif of little hearts, stars, pinwheels and water pistols, which runs along the frames of the Polaroids like the embroidery of trimmings and recalls the delicacy of lingerie. “When I got a water pistol tattoo I still wasn’t thinking about the war, I still wasn’t thinking about you“, is a declaration (of love/war?) made through the sign of belonging to this subversive game of roles.
His stained water guns are a romantic metamorphosis of amphorae and decorated vases that elevates the object to a fetish. A celebration of the generative power of water (and by extension body fluids), which defuses the concept of weapons as a means of destruction. This imaginative, ironic and irreverent narrative dimension is also present in the libertine and light-hearted version of his Book for adults: a tactile and sensorial work, which the artist creates to be caressed and revealed in the small alcove set up in the project room. In this world of fantasy, a little childish and a little animalier, day after day, game after game, the metaphor of life is staged with a playful and joyful approach, without judgment of morality. (texts by Marta Toma)
The exhibition ‘Ludo Via’ by Elisa Schiavina, edited by Giulia Toma and Marta Toma, It can be visited from Saturday 27 April – World Drawing Day – until Saturday 8 June.
Biographical notes
Elisa Schiavina (PV, 1992) – Experimental visual artist, currently lives and works in Milan.
After a classical education in Alessandria and a degree in Psychology from the University of Pavia, he moved to Milan where he undertook the two-year course in Painting at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts and trained alongside the artist Marco Cingolani.
In his work he uses painting, sculpture and installation as a tool for investigating physical and emotional reality, with a particular focus on everything that remains infantile in adulthood and on what, vice versa, during childhood has to do with the adult world.
Recent exhibitions include: the collective ‘Sguardi II’ at the Galleria Lorenzelli Arte (Milan, 2022) and the Frankfurter Westend Galerie (Frankfurt am Main, 2022); the collective ‘Buona Fortuna Ribelli’ organized by Osservatorio Futura in collaboration with Lunetta11, in which he created the commission for a site-specific intervention for the Municipality of San Benedetto Belbo (Cuneo, 2022); the solo exhibition ‘Per Ecuba’ at Spazio E_EMME (Cagliari, 2023); the collective ‘Summer Storm’ at the Giovanni Bonelli Gallery (Milan, 2023); participation in the Biennolo edition ‘Talitha Kum’ (Get up, girl), curated by Giacinto di Pietrantonio (Milan, 2023).
Last year she was included in the volume “222 emerging artists to invest in / 2024” published by Exibart, the report on the most interesting names in the emerging artistic panorama in Italy.
“I find that aspects linked to death are important in my work, understood as the minimum moment between the end of a generative cycle and the beginning of another, and to life, understood as the total generativity of the organic, capable of at least quantitatively defeating death at inside the human experience.
In talking about this I sometimes make use of animal divinities, I imagine that I have their powers and abilities, I reclaim in a certain sense something spiritual, aimed at the question of life which contains growth, play, sex, death, the perception of divinity, cohabitation with other species and cohabitation with the bright colors of high tech.
The unconscious dimension is inevitably present in what I do, as it is for everyone; perhaps my studies and a few years of Lacanian analysis have made me more aware of the symbolism underlying some images. I am interested in childhood and the transition age between this phase and adulthood.
The playful dimension is actually present in these moments of existence even if in a different way; I could say that I question the game, I joke about it and I mix it with my imagination as a young adult, in which sexuality is very present because it is still linked to discovery, therefore to play, which is the desire for discovery and discovery.” Elisa Schiavina
Taken from an interview by Manuela Piccolo for Forme Uniche, Artslife –
01/16/22
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