Alice Tomaselli, NO FOOD, NO PET, NO FLOWERS
In collaboration with con Lucie Fontaine
14 November – 10 January
Over a period of five months, Circoloquadro, MARS and Lucie Fontaine, three independent contemporary art research groups, have had the opportunity to freely interpret the macro-theme of Botany, chosen as the leitmotif for the 2016 exhibition season at Casa Testori, alternating in some of the rooms on the ground floor.
No food, no pet, no flowers is the prohibition sign displayed at the entrance to the National Art Center in Tokyo, the city where the artist Alice Tomaselli has lived and worked since 2011.
In the path proposed by the artist, a synthesis was attempted between western and eastern traditions, which developed various techniques for defining and modelling flowers and plants, such as ikebana, bonsai and somebana.
Ikebana, the art of arranging cut flowers, was the inspiration for the series of sculptures on display in the first room, representing a sort of fragmented self-portrait of the artist: made of papier-mâché and fabric, they gave life to a floral composition inspired by the illustrations in an ikebana manual.
Somebana is the Japanese technique of making silk flowers. In the second room, Alice Tomaselli presented a pair of paintings with geometric shapes, which were used by an artisan to make fake flowers.
On display were two bouquets, made with the same shapes but in different shades, representing the different phases of the life of plants.
