Marc Camille Chaimowicz. Maybe Metafisica

Triennale of Milan presents Marc Camille Chaimowicz. Maybe Metafisica curated by Eva Fabbris, with the artistic direction of Edoardo Bonaspetti, curator of Triennale Arte.

For his first solo show in an Italian public venue, Marc Camille Chaimowicz has conceived an exhibition design linked to the history and architecture of the Palazzo dell’Arte—home to Triennale of Milan—with works revealing a formal and emotive affinity with the most oneiric of the historical avant-garde movements, Metaphysical art, and its artistic heirs. 

Chaimowicz is a pioneer in the multidisciplinary approach. Starting in the 1970s, his installations and performances anticipated the now widespread practice of merging visual arts with choreography, stage direction and curatorship. Open to the intermingling of design, literature and theatre, the artist dedicated entire bodies of works to key people in his career, figures of melancholy and rebellion, including Jean Cocteau, Jean Gênet and Gustave Flaubert. 

Starting from Giorgio de Chirico’s Il Figliuol prodigo (Prodigal Son, 1973), in which a father and son are painted in a bare interior imbued with a surreal disquiet, the exhibition follows a circular path, characterized by a sense of suspension. Immersed in this atmosphere, the observer encounters some of the most characteristic expressive modes in the artist’s quest, ranging from decoration to painting and from installations to the construction of interiors. The domestic intimacy of reclining desks is juxtaposed with works of architectural inspiration such as the Arches (1975–2016) and the Two-Speed Staircase (1999–2016), giving rise to places pervaded by a dreamlike quality, sometimes physically inaccessible, as in We Chose Our Words With Care, That Neon-Moonlit Evening; It Was As If We Were, Party To A Wonderful Alchemy (1975–2008), a work that can only be viewed through holes in a curtain, or the mysterious Project For A Rural House (2003–16), which immerses the viewer in the meditative atmosphere of motionless time.

Triennale of Milan and the Serpentine Galleries in London are delighted to dedicate two exhibitions to Marc Camille Chaimowicz. From September 29 to November 20, 2016, the Serpentine presents Autumn Lexicon an installation of work creating a nebulous, quasi-domestic world responding to the architecture and history of the Gallery.

Triennale of Milan is furthermore proud to announce the first solo show by the Belgian duo Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys in an Italian institution. The exhibition, in close dialogue with the architecture of the museum, will be curated by Francesco Garutti with the artistic direction of Edoardo Bonaspetti. Scheduled to open in January 2017.

*Marc Camille Chaimowicz, We Chose Our Words With Care, That Neon-Moonlit Evening; It Was As If We Were, Party To A Wonderful Alchemy (detail), 1975. View of the exhibition at Overduin and Kite, Los Angeles, 2009. Courtesy the artist and Cabinet, London.