Project Room #18
Lito Kattou
Whisperers
curated by Chiara Nuzzi
April 6 - June 9, 2023
Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, Via Vigevano 9, Milano
With the exhibition Whisperers by Lito Kattou (Cyprus, 1990), the new exhibition cycle Corpo Celeste begins, a new chapter of Project Room, the “observatory” project of the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro dedicated to the developments of the international art scene. This year, the project has been entrusted to curator Chiara Nuzzi (Naples, 1986).
Inspired by the eponymous collection of essays by writer Anna Maria Ortese and her attempts to “restore to the real the meaning of belonging to another reality, a larger and unknowable one,” Corpo Celeste unfolds in two solo exhibitions. The first is dedicated to Lito Kattou, with the second, scheduled for September 2023, dedicated to Paul Maheke (France, 1985). In both exhibitions, sculpture becomes a tool for creating other bodies, hybridized with matter, nature, and the animal world, to inhabit new worlds. In these possible otherworlds, Kattou and Maheke explore the potential of sculptural material, constructing environments and narratives that undermine the present and question the future. The artists develop two site-specific projects that mix different media to create immersive environmental installations: thus, the exhibition space of the Foundation becomes a landscape populated by images and almost metaphysical presences.
Whisperers is the first solo exhibition in an Italian institution by Lito Kattou, whose research is influenced by the natural, social, and political context of the Mediterranean region. Inspired by mythologies, stories, and local archeologies, the artist has incorporated themes into his practice such as the reconciliation between life and death and the acceptance of the linearity and circularity of time, through which he reflects on the coexistence of different realities. His works – bodies, hybrid and abstract creatures, anthropomorphic or animal, with natural and cosmic elements embedded within – analyze the process of material change over time, the theme of otherness, and unknown space-time scenarios.
The artist creates for the spaces of the Foundation Whisperer I, II, III and IV, four imposing sculptures made of aluminum, steel, acrylic, nickel-plated copper, and biodegradable plastic. These sculptures represent four components of a community – connected by symbols, signs, and fragments that form a familiar grammar – and are linked to Whisperer V, a fifth sculpture installed on the façade of Fondazione ICA Milano. This intervention serves as a bridge between the two institutions and marks the beginning of their collaboration.
On the occasion of the exhibition, a booklet with critical text by Chiara Nuzzi is published.
Info and how to access the exhibition
When: from April 6 to June 9, on Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays from 11:00 AM to 7:00 PM (last admission 30 minutes before closing).
Where: Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, Via Vigevano 9, Milan
Tickets: free entry
Under the patronage of
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