IRENE DIONISIO
GERMINATION
GERMINATION
Ghent (NY), Art Omi
July 16, 2022
Washington, Italian Cultural Institute
August 17, 2022
New York, Italian Cultural Institute
October 4, 2022
Exhibition views: © Irene Dionisio. Courtesy Art Omi, Ghent
Curated by Ilaria Bernardi
The exhibition project by Irene Dionisio (Turin, 1986) includes new works, created during her residency at Art Omi, combined with older works on the same theme: the germ, to be understood according to the definition given by the biological sciences, that is, as an initial stage of a subsequent development or growth of any kind of entity (vegetal, animal, human, pathogenic, psychic or even figurative-metaphorical).
In the first room we listen to tape recorder audio from Da togliere il fiato (2021), originally conceived to accompany the walk of passers-by on the San Rocco Bridge in Milan, a place historically linked to the experience of plague that is a result of a pathogenic germ.
The plague is the premises for one of the artist’s new works created at Art Omi, Still Life (2022): starting from his uncle’s death in the hospital caused by another pathogenic germ, Covid-19, the ‘still lives’ correspond to the last traces of a digital greeting with the uncle that returns to being material.
Instead, the installation Parole di cocente attualità (2021-2022) bears witness to the ‘sacrilegious’ act of burning a book, burned by the “germ” of the digital age.
As a pendant, a white flag on the ceiling and a chair in the center of the room constitute a new version of Che l’assenza sia dichiarata (2019-2022), implying how only cultural ghosts exist today, destroyed by the “germ” of capitalism.
The projection of Germ Theory I – a reflection on the relationship between the digital/technological, as well as on the concept of germ/germination – converses with the documentation of the participatory project Saluzzo Rural Happening (2018-2022), which constitutes a prologue for the new sound work installed in the Art Omi Park silo: through the voices of African workers, a choral fable recounts the archetypes of a collectively created fairy tale dedicated to a heroine fighting to save biodiversity.
Accompanying the viewing of all the works is a sound taken from Il grande mistero (2022), obtained from the process of sonification of the Higgs Boson.
In a second room, a screening of the film Il mio unico crimine è vedere chiaro nella notte (2020) is a tribute to the artist’s parallel activity as a film director.
The exhibition project is the first part of the artist’s longer-term project in the United States, including the second stop at the Italian Cultural Institute in Washington and the third stop at the Italian Cultural Institute in New York, where she presents the videos Germ Theory (2020) and the film Sponde (2015).