The project investigate our way of seing and perceiving the outside world, challenging and reinterpreting the delimitating “colonial gaze” and the contemporary “passive gaze”.
What do we see and what is beyond the painted landscapes?
May 10, between 6 p.m and 9 p.m, I had a solo presentation during the Open Studios at La Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris. Both recent and ongoing works produced during my six-month residency were shown in an installation in my studio.
The same evening from 6 p.m to 8 p.m, the piece called A Whisper and Three Trembling Shadows, an ongoing collaboration between me and photographer Erik Hagman, was shown outside in the courtyard, at La Cité Internationale des Arts.
Installation view with Disappearance/Reappearance; tempera and oil on linen, 220 x 165 cm.
Installation view
Refugium; Fabrics, salt, paper, Barley flour, glue, tempera, oil on linen. Vitrine; pine wood, white paint, screws. 75 x 50 x 9,5 cm
The Uncollection (work in progress) . Installation views and detail.. Oil on glass and on stone, loupes, dried coral, plants, charcoal, pencil and watercolor on glassine and papper.
Installation based on 33 different butterfly species, in scale 1:1. Wax, paper, watercolor.
The Weight of Water, Fabrics, salt, paper, Barley flour, salt, glue, tempera, oil on linen. 2 x 81 x 54 cm
A Whisper and Three Trembling Shadows consists of a tent that acts as a camera obscura and a sound work recorded in a meadow. The intention behind the piece is to create a spatial experience of a landscape that interacts with our immediate environment to evoke memories and offer an ambiguous picture of what we believe nature stands for.
The image produced inside the Camera obscura.
The piece has been shown earlier in Stockholm and in Sjöbo, Sweden. It was shown in yet another environement relating to how we, as human beings, consciously and unconsciously construct an image of our own world that reflects our ideas and desires. This inner image is just like in the camera obscura, a projection in constant change.
The exhibitionSom en tunn linje mellan dig och mig/ As a thin line between you and me builds on themes; man and nature, the controllable and the unpredictable, where the artist examines and problematizes definite, cultural notions and scientific truths about what we call nature.
Ett samarbete mellan Magali Cunico och Erik Hagman
For english, please scroll down
Verket är en installation bestående av en ljudinspelning och ett svart tält som fungerar som en camera obscura. Tanken bakom verket är att skapa en rumslig upplevelse av ett landskap som interagerar med vår närmiljö för att väcka minnen och erbjuda en mångtydig bild av vad vi anser att naturen står för. Tältet är en tillfällig konstruktion som går att flytta till nya platser. Verket En viskning och tre darrande skuggor anknyter till hur människan medvetet och omedvetet konstruerar en bild av sin egen omvärld som representerar våra föreställningar och önskningar. Denna inre bild är precis som i camera obscura, en projektion i ständig förändring.
Verket visades kl. 14-18, den 28 och den 29 augusti i anslutning til Paviljong C, Hökarången, i Stockholm och den 20 augusti 2022 utanför Sjöbo konsthall, i samband med min finissage. Den 10 maj 2023, visades verket åter i ett nytt sammanhang,, under Open Studios, på La Cité Internationale des Arts i Paris . Mer info hittar ni här; https://magalicunico.com/2023/08/04/reflections-and-a-whispering-and-three-trembling-shadows/
A whisper and three trembling shadows is an ongoing collaboration between Magali Cunico and Erik Hagman.
The piece consists of a tent that acts like a camera obscura together with a sound piece recorded at a meadow.
The intention behind the piece called En viskning och tre darrande skuggor is to create a spatial experience of a landscape that interacts with our immediate environment to evoke memories and offer an ambiguous picture of what we believe nature stands for.
A tent is a temporary construction that one can easily move to new places. It relates to how we, as human beings, consciously and unconsciously construct an image of our own world that reflects our ideas and desires. This inner image is just like in the camera obscura, a projection in constant change.
The title of the show Mimicry is taken from the Greek adjective mimētikos which means imitating. In the shadow of the ongoing environmental crisis, there seems to be two opposite approaches in science. There are those who are searching for answers in the yet undiscovered living organisms before they will go extinct. Other scientists are developing methods to create artificial life by modifying the cells of living organisms.
Installation view with Apart and Mimikry
Apart. Diptic. Paper, salt, grass, glue, tempera and oil on linen. 107 x 125 cm and 90 x 125 cm
Installation views
Som en tunn linje mellan dig och mig; Triptic. Paper, salt, Barley flour, tempera and oil on linen. 110 x 50 cm , 110 x 63 cm and 110 x 63 cm.
Installation views
Yn = An; oil on acrylic glas, chalk and blackboard paint on plywood. The frame is made in pinewood and painted with a black varnish color. 60 x 40 x 5 cm
Algoritm; oil on acrylic glass, chalk and blackboard paint. Painted handmade wooden frame. 35 x 36,5 x 5 cm
Laboratory; sand, salt, glue, tempera and oil on linen, 90 x 86 cm
Laboratory II; paper, glue, salt, tempera and oil on linen, 120 x 59 cm
Altered Phoenix; sand, glue, paper, tempera, oil and sour milk on linen, 130 x 92 cm
The piece I showed at Centrifug, Konsthall C, was an installation featuring fifty sculptures inspired by the Monarch butterfly, an endangered species, shown together with a lite panel lamp and three test tubes filled with watercolors. During their annual migration, the Monarch head to California and to Central Mexico where they can be seen gathering in a huge number on the same tree.
In an experiment, a scientist modified the pattern of the wings on a group of Nymphalidae by either adding or painting over the dots. This had unforeseen consequences for the male’s ability to survive and attract a female.
During the artistic process, many decisions are made. Can aesthetic purposes be reconciled with scientific research processes? The white dots on the Monarch’s wings that are characteristics of this species, were removed as they did not fit into my artistic interpretation. On an aesthetic level, my artistic working process began to resemble science’s manipulation of the living.
The term Butterfly effect was minted by the mathematician and meteorologist Edward Lorenz. The Butterfly effect is based on the theory that a marginal impact in a part of a system can result in large and unpredictable effects elsewhere in the system.
Installation views; 50 sculptures made of paper, watercolor, wax, pigment and shellac and a lite panel lamp. The sculptures are in scale 1:1
Lab tubes filled with water color and water hang on the opposite wall.
The title of the show Where words are impossible is taken from a quote by contemporary philosopher Timothy Morton, who believes that the time has come for a new way of thinking. We must re-evaluate ourselves in relation to nature and understand that we are part of it – art is a way to this insight.
Several works in the exhibition are connected to the site’s history and the former garden that disappeared due to the city’s major renovations. Some of the works include fragments of texts as a reflection of the complexity of our time, taken from the stories of the people whose existence has been overturned as a result of ecological and political crises.
Mosaik, mixed media and oil on linen, 140 x 65 cmEkon, mixed media and oil on linen, 140 x 96 cm Fragment of Grey, installation view, Krognoshuset. Photo; Erik HagmanFragment of Grey, detail.
No Victory, mixed media on linen and oil on acrylic glass, painted wooden frame, 75 x 49 x 9,5 c
Skuggornas tysta ord, oil on acrylic glass, painted wooden frame, 62,5 x 85,5 x3 cmLost Garden, oil on glass, and oil on linen, painted wooden frame, 26 x 23,5 x 5 cmDilemmat, installation view, Krognoshuset, 2020Dilemmat, mixed media and oil on linnen, oil on acrylic glass, painted wooden frame, 124 x 84 x 11 cm. Photo; Erik HagmanThe structures will collapse; Site specific installation in the basement. Oil on glass, overhead projector, paper, glue, pigment and tempera on board. Photo; Erik Hagman
Det är en Plats av Ingenting; notes, text, glue, paper, tempera, graphite powder and oil on linen, 101 x 78 cmInstallation view with the sculpture Fragment of Grey; paper, glue, texts, graphite powder, oil on plywood, list, 2 x 180 x 125 x 6 cm, Bångska Våningen
Fragment of green; paper, glue, graphite powder, tempera and oil on linen, 140 x 110 cm Fragment of Green II, charcoal and graphite directly on the wall, oil on acrylic glas, 75 x 61 cm and 60 x 40 cmInstallation viewLonging to a slightly unreal mood II; paper, glue, tempera and oil on linen, 73 x 65 cmInstallation view with film lamps hanging from the roof.
Le Naufage;paper, glue, salt, tempera, oil and ink on linen, 83 x 57 cmInstallation view with A Wall and Longing to a Slightly Unreal Mood IIIInstallation viewLonging to a Slightly Unreal Mood IV; paper, glue, tempera and oil on linen, 73 x 55 cm Longing to a Slightly Unreal Mood III; paper, notes, glue, tempera and oil on linen, 70 x 63 cmLonging to a Slightly Unreal Mood I; paper, glue, flour, tempera, water color and oil on linen, 73 x 65 cm