Opening, 9 December 2014 / 6pm

Gabriella Ciancimino

Vert Magique, Amour Noir

Vert Magique, Amour Noir is the new research project of Gabriella Ciancimino, with which the artist starts a discussion on the origin of dualism anarchy/occultism from which, for some, it derives the A symbol circled.

 
The first step of the project develops in the city of Brussels, shelter and destination of many anarchic activists from whole Europe since the beginning of the last century; They include Alexandra David-Néel, anarchist occultist France-Belgium that dedicated her life to non-fiction, Orientalists and ethnographic studies that led her to travel the world, first by bicycle all around Europe, then on to India, Africa and China. In 1899, Alexandra David- Néel wrote an anarchist essay under the pseudonym of Alexandra Myrial, entitled Pour la vie with the preface of the anarchist and geographer Elysée Reclus. And it is precisely the cover of this volume, along with the portrait of the writer, which Ciancimino depicts the composition of drawings that become the translation of this first step of the project presented in space No profit KOMPLOT in Brussels.
For the above-mentioned elements, there have to be added some excerpts of Italian and French anarchist periodicals, related to Funds related to Anarchy and Pacifism fArchives Mondaneum of Mons (Belgium).

 
In the composition, Ciancimino retraces the botanical plates of some plants to which were attributed magical properties from the Middle Ages to the Present, which would still be used for the preparation of love potions. Among other, the Achillea millefolium, the Atropa Belladonna, and FilipendulaUlmaria which grow in total freedom in the territory of Brussels and whose mapping has been possible thanks to the project Flora of Bruxelles made by Dr. Luc Allemeersch of NGB (National Botanic Garden of Belgium). 1 And yet, Ciancimino adds the Aster novi-belgii, reported as invasive plant from The Belgian Forum on Invasive Species (BFIS).

 
To these "magic plants" (which according to the theories of Gilles Clément2 constitute the third landscape in Brussels, as the growing urban space debris), Ciancimino adds some graphic flowers’ studies of the architect Victor Horta, regarded as the founder of the Art Nouveau , whose word "Liberty" gave a political significance for the artist.
With Vert Magique, Amour continues Ciancimino’s ethno botanic research that focuses attention once again on the relationship between humans and plants in nature, magical herbalism recognizing a possible unifying role between the elements that make up a landscape and hoping for the resolution of dualism of man/nature in the libertarian sense for the establishment of an ecological society inspired by the theories of the philosopher Murray Bookchin, whose colours of the flag would be just green and black.

Giuseppe Buzzotta & Vincenzo Schillaci

La vita rapita

There is a reason why we like certain geometric shapes, if not because these forms are a simplification of the forms that we love in the body? this union completely unexpected,sex and geometry proof perhaps how deeply the idea of the nude is related to our basic notions of order and design?
 
The desire to squeeze and join another body is a fundamental part of human nature that, in considering the so-called "pure form" we are inevitably affected.
 
As a result of the sexual revolution of the western countries in the early seventies, the nude has become an abstraction inanimate and the sexual element has become something to be relegated to a company's performance in which eros, not only as a sexual attraction but also as life force that moves the mind, has been revised by the new moral stability.
 
The artist has the ability to focus and extend in different directions at the same time the sexual elements, which may otherwise be submerged by the decor in the representative context or by the anecdote.
 
Anything can have a symbolic meaning: as natural objects (stones, animals, humans, mountains and valleys, the sun and the moon, the wind, water and fire), as things that are man (houses, boats, vehicles), and even abstract forms (numbers, geometric figures). In fact, the entire cosmos is a potential symbol.

With the support of Fédération Wallonie-Bruxelles, Vlaamse Gemeenschapscommissie, COCOF and Gemeente Vorst.

 left: Vincenzo Schillaci

right: Giuseppe Buzzotta

 left: Giuseppe Buzzotta

right: Vincenzo Schillaci