Katharina Fritsch at the Galleria Civica di Modena
20th May-22nd July 2007
Coloured umbrellas, snakes and extraordinary monochromatic landscapes fill the mysterious world of Katharina Fritsch. The renowned artists first exhibition in an Italian museum space, after featuring in the German Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1995, is based on a close relationship with the notion of the garden and the venue in which the exhibition is to be held. After taking part in the group show EGOmania (2006), Fritsch returns to the Galleria Civica di Modena with a new series of works that could not be better placed than in the Palazzina dei Giardini, a building, originally a 17th-century hall for dancing and entertainments, built on request of the Estense ducat.
Curated by Milovan Farronato, the exhibition is organised and produced by the Galleria Civica of Modena along with the Fondazione Cassa di Risparmio di Modena, with the support of the Goethe- Institut Mailand of Milan.
Fritsch here presents a new series of sculptures and prints in which the imagery revolves around the classic theme of the garden, in which she examines both physical and moral straying, losing and finding oneself in the shadows of object-icons loaded with a range of meanings and suggestions. Fritsch is interested in the ambivalence of the garden, its ability to comprehend that which is surprising, the dark corners, the traces of memory, the history of various generations.
The visitors task is to take on the role of the wandering knight. We start off within a sound installation with all the calls, cries and sounds of nature – before being forced to set out on one of two paths through the world of otherness, of sin, through the superstitious reversal of values, the traces of the memory.
The recurrent motifs and images, which immediately take on an iconic value, are inspired by just as many well-defined and colourful statues each linked to larger-scale prints made up of a number of panels showing garden scenes, largely featuring Essen, the artists home town.
The images themselves come from photos taken by Fritsch or from postcards sent to her in the 1970s by her own family: a pictorial world in which the material nature of the objects is removed from the memory or dream. Each panel makes use of a single colour. The image seems to have faded in the sunlight, and the colours appear to have been chosen from amongst those of the Christian Liturgy.
Katharina Fritsch
Palazzina dei Giardini, c.so Canalgrande, Modena, Italy
20th May 22nd July
Opening: Sunday 20th May, 12pm
Opening Times:
From Wednesday to Sunday, including holidays, 10.30am 1pm; 4pm 7.30pm
Admission Free
Galleria Civica, c.so Canalgrande 103, 41100 Modena, Italy
tel. 39 059.2032911/2032940 – fax 39 059.2032932
