The site-specific exhibition designed by the artist dialogues with the sacredness and silence of the space of the Basilica di San Celso in Milan
The artistic path of Nina Carini
With a background in painting and sculpture Nina Carini in pursuing her artistic and educational path has favored forms such as video and sound. Although those were the mediums she preferred to use, symbolized by her work Confine (2017) video installation now in the collection at Mart in Rovereto, she never stopped experimenting. Especially through the residency formula she hybridized her knowledge with new forms or materials as she tells about bronze.
The sculpture on display at the Basilica of San Celso in fact represents her first approach to this material that occurred just in a residency at Fonderia Artistica Battaglia. The relationship with the exhibition site is also fundamental in Carini’s work. On the other hand, as far as the closeness to the themes she exposes through her art is concerned, it is expressed by highlighting a dialogue between the internal and external gaze.
«Perhaps I could use words and create a map by drawing lines, as in a constellation: language, origin, time, poetry, fragility, indeterminacy, invisibility, energy, coincidence, cosmology, infinity», the artist explains.
Aperçues, the core of the exhibition
Aperçues is a term the artist discovered through reading the writer G. Didi Huberman. It comes from the verb apercevoir which means to glimpse, but Carini explains that it contains many meanings. In this project, the artist aspires to bring the same energy found in reading the book as well as suspending it in an infinite space and time.
«The materials used are glass, crystal, polished bronze, alabaster, water: all elements that react with light and consequently seek a relationship with the viewer» she points out. The volume from which she draws inspiration has no illustrations, and the elements are evoked through words. This is why the artist finds a certain reticence in approaching the image, and she goes on to specify how the materials in the exhibition dialogue with invisibility.
Aperçues exposition: a reflection on vulnerability
Besides the specificity of the exhibition site, for this opera Carini ideas a project on its own that starts from several factors. Among the works chosen is Venere Bugiarda (2022) [Venus Liar], which uses nine alabaster spheres that when crossed by light reveal transparencies and reflections.
A letter is engraved on each sphere to compose the words Per sempre [forever] and their position mimics the orbit of Venus, traditionally associated with love, around the Sun. The artist explains, «It is as if Venus, revolving around the Sun, is saying to it I will revolve around you forever. It does not, however, correspond to truth because due to the climatic contingency we are experiencing, the Sun is constantly enlarging and one day, even if distant, it will swallow the planets inside its sphere». At the center of the installation there is a circle that creates plays of light and contains two flowers, symbolizing the artist’s reflection on vulnerability.
The extinction of the world at the entrance
Welcoming visitors as they arrive is the sound installation Le cose in pericolo (A, B, C, D, E…) [The Endangered Things (A, B, C, D, E…)]. A series of voices overlap, repeating terms inexorably in different languages, unknown and symbolic of what is about to disappear: languages, tribes, geographical areas.
The work explains the artist is dedicated to what is about to become extinct in our world, and the project involved five groups of children in this indecipherable reading. The rendering that gives a sense of bewilderment also highlights how much more things human beings do not know than they can know during their lifetime.
A river of words that outlines the passage of time in a disorienting context symbolizes the reality that surrounds us and that we often do not understand while from another point of view it is disappearing. This undercurrent, says Carini «Is like a mantra, a pitting of terms. Everything is precarious, vulnerable, so is our existence».
The site specific in Basilica di San Celso in Milan
Although some works such as Venere Bugiarda (2022) [Venus Liar] were previously conceived, in this case they are reconsidered. «Site-specific works the moment they change space have to be rethought» Carini explains. So specifically that work has been reissued and is called Venere Bugiarda 3023 [Venus Liar 3023] here.
The space in the Basilica di San Celso in Milan was conceived by curators Angela Madesani and Rischa Paterlini with respect to the artist’s works. So there was a mutual exchange between a place already suitable for his exhibitions and site-specific works reproduced for this space. Initially, this place almost intimidated the artist whose architectural and historical significance dating back to the Romanesque period seemed to be enough.
Mani come rami che toccano cielo (2023)
But in allowing himself to be fascinated by what the Basilica offered in terms of setting Carini allowed and enhanced this mutual dialogue. For example, the work Mani come rami che toccano cielo (2023) [Hands as Branches Touching Heaven] seems to create entrances, sliting within the apse, in an area where bricks are missing. These are two very long arms reaching for the sky and are placed near these absent parts of the Basilica and three windows almost representing mysterious doors.
Materiality and spirituality: the dialogue in Aperçues
The Aperçues project evokes a dialogue between materiality and spirituality in an almost natural relationship between the works and the space. There has been no artistic research with respect to spirituality, the artist says, already referring to the presence of such a relevant setting in these terms.
What Carini worked on was the amplification of this concept through the use of light. «Talking about spirituality is very dangerous because it belongs to a threshold that is no longer of the visible world but of the invisible one», says the artist. She also talks about narrative coincidences and how the combination of elements in the project brought out this dual perspective.
With respect to materiality there is definitely an experimental dialogue with materials such as stone or bronze that tried, however, according to the artist to go beyond the intrinsic nature of them.
Nina Carini
Artist graduated in Paintings and Sculpture that evolved her work in the audio-visual sphere. Going beyond her studies she continues to experiment, finding in this practice her artistic way of expression.
