She Let Them Believe She is An Ornament
Giuseppe Capitano
Known for his hemp sculptures made through a slow process of drying, weaving and shaping the natural fibre, Capitano presents recent works on paper made with the plants that grow around his trullo in the rural area of Valle d'Itria in Apulia, Italy.
Weeds, berries, and spinach are collected as the seasons go by and applied raw on handmade paper. Situated at the threshold between the incommensurable and the ornamental within plants, these iridescent drawings capture the artist's efforts to observe their life cycles, oxidation and extinguishment.
As the pigments and minerals oxidise in response to the light and their contact with the paper, the geometries and patterns of the drawings start shimmering. Reflecting the life-cycle of the plants, the drawings continue to change over time. However, any commitment to emulate the rhythms and cycles of the vegetal world is left suspended as a tread, the image of a rhizome that testifies of this unexhausted effort to realign the pace of humans with non-human forms of existence.
Giuseppe Capitano (Campobasso,1974) has exhibited his work in various galleries and Museums in Italy, including MART, Trento and Rovereto; GNAM Galleria Nazionale D’Arte Moderna, Rome; and MUSMA, Matera. Launched by the famous arte povera gallery L'Attico in Rome, his ecological work and artistic trajectory have received many accolades, acquisitions and publications, including the volumes Qualcosa di Giallo (Skira, 2008 ) and Arborea II (diagonale/galleria, 2011). He has collaborated with curators and critics such as Laura Cherubini, Achille Bonito Oliva and STEM scientist Domenico Parisi, who recently wrote that Capitano is an "artist who let others see the halo of things". In the last two years, Capitano expanded his sculpture-making practice to build a self-sufficient rural home in the South of Italy. This is the first exhibition following this latus and documenting the artist's re-connection with his new land.
She let them believe she is an ornament is the first of a series of artistic collaborations between otherprojections and curator Francesca Cavallo that seek to reimagine the experience of art in the context of habitation. Away from the white cube and the musealisation of art, the collaboration aims to conjure intimate encounters where art is re-integrated in daily life, in the shape of soulful, tactile images that we wish to live with, at an affordable price.
Photography : READS
