Origines by Maggie Cardelús
Nilufar Gallery
Milan, 25.01.2022—19.03.2022
Nilufar Gallery presents Origines - Maggie Cardelús, an exhibition dedicated to the work of the Paris based, American/Spanish artist and designer. For the exhibition Cardelús brings together her Origine NeckPieces and five Anatomies that she has created especially for the Nilufar25 mq exhibition space.
The Origine NeckPieces are highly crafted, leather and cast bronze pendants whose enigmatic presence feel like contemporary and abstracted versions of ancient fertility figurines, sacred objects, or ritualistic artifacts. These captivating knotted pieces interact with her Anatomies, themselves large and sensuously knotted forms.
Crafted from vegetable tanned leather and industrial wax, the Anatomies wall sculptures provide the NeckPieces with a home that is native to them, mediating between them and the surrounding space. When describing the Anatomies, Cardelús writes “I wanted my NeckPieces to be situated in a place of belonging, a place that supplants the human body while suggesting, at the same time, a place of origin. By the time I finished the Anatomies, I was thinking of them as many things...dissected or deconstructed bodies, vessels, flowers, frames, nests, caves, altars, jars, emanations, books, blankets...and more...”
This is, possibly, the first time a piece of art jewlery has been integrated by its maker into a larger sculpture with the intention of activating a performative action on the part of who wants to wear it. In ritualistic manner, the wearer must lift the NeckPiece off the Anatomie - which has assumed the meaning of a body double or reflection of the wearer - to wear it, and then return it afterwards. Similarly, ritual and performativity is present with Cardelús portable body-like leather cases, which the wearer opens up in order to carefully remove the organ-like NeckPiece, lifting it from one body to put on another.
Photo credits Mattia Iotti
Milan, 25.01.2022—19.03.2022
Nilufar Gallery presents Origines - Maggie Cardelús, an exhibition dedicated to the work of the Paris based, American/Spanish artist and designer. For the exhibition Cardelús brings together her Origine NeckPieces and five Anatomies that she has created especially for the Nilufar25 mq exhibition space.
The Origine NeckPieces are highly crafted, leather and cast bronze pendants whose enigmatic presence feel like contemporary and abstracted versions of ancient fertility figurines, sacred objects, or ritualistic artifacts. These captivating knotted pieces interact with her Anatomies, themselves large and sensuously knotted forms.
Crafted from vegetable tanned leather and industrial wax, the Anatomies wall sculptures provide the NeckPieces with a home that is native to them, mediating between them and the surrounding space. When describing the Anatomies, Cardelús writes “I wanted my NeckPieces to be situated in a place of belonging, a place that supplants the human body while suggesting, at the same time, a place of origin. By the time I finished the Anatomies, I was thinking of them as many things...dissected or deconstructed bodies, vessels, flowers, frames, nests, caves, altars, jars, emanations, books, blankets...and more...”
This is, possibly, the first time a piece of art jewlery has been integrated by its maker into a larger sculpture with the intention of activating a performative action on the part of who wants to wear it. In ritualistic manner, the wearer must lift the NeckPiece off the Anatomie - which has assumed the meaning of a body double or reflection of the wearer - to wear it, and then return it afterwards. Similarly, ritual and performativity is present with Cardelús portable body-like leather cases, which the wearer opens up in order to carefully remove the organ-like NeckPiece, lifting it from one body to put on another.
Photo credits Mattia Iotti
Picture