PRESENTATION: Céline Condorelli-In the Light of What We Know
Céline Condorelli’s work inhabits the boundaries between public and private, art and function, work and leisure, in order to reimagine what culture and society can be, and the role of artists within them. Often using forms of sculptural objects or architectures, Condorelli’s installations make interventions to the way that people navigate or use a space, whether that is in the context of a museum or a children’s playground, a public garden or an artist’s studio.
By Efi Michalarou
Photo: Remai Modern Archive
Céline Condorelli makes sculptures and play structures that live in the soft edges between public and private, art and function, and work and leisure. The works are often a reminder of how art museums have evolved from a European colonial model, and that while accepted modes of display are continuously shifting, the notions of taste, culture and value celebrated in museums are often dictated by socio-economic conditions. As a nod to this history, Condorelli often includes the work of others and the legacies of those who came before her. Condorelli’s exhibition “ In the Light of What We Know “ is also being realised on a different schedule and timeframe to the normal exhibition program. It started in 2022 with “Conversation Piece (Spinning)” in the Cameco Children’s Play Area – a carousel that invites people to spin, play and rest. The show has since slowly unfolded throughout the museum. In the Remai Modern, Condorelli reframes the museum’s collection by including her own artwork and placing it in dialogue with other artists’ works. Presented in unexpected clusters of relations, the more than 75 works she has selected form new stories through an artist’s eye. The work by other artists helps reveal and encourage new ways of thinking and behaving in museums. One Level 2, viewers can find Rirkrit Tiravanija, whose participatory ping-pong installation “Tomorrow is the Question” is placed within “In the Light of What We Know” The title of the exhibition comes from Condorelli’s long-term textile artwork in the windows on Level 3, which also softens the edges between inside and outside, and was installed at Remai Modern in 2023. It is a sculpture, a piece of textile art, a curtain and a frame around our view of the South Saskatchewa/n River and the city of Saskatoon, situated on Treaty 6 Territory and the Homeland of the Métis. It builds on the invitation to play, rest and reflect proposed by Condorelli’s “Conversation Piece (Spinning)” on Level 2. Carousels and curtains are not typical features of modern art museums, but Condorelli is inspired by how both art and the standards for its display have evolved over time. We associate curtains with homes where they create warmth, privacy, intimacy and style, not with the formal, muted and angular spaces of public art institutions like Remai Modern. Textiles have been associated with women artists across cultures and time. Condorelli acknowledges the connection between textiles and women’s work, playing with scale to create contrast between hard and soft, public and domestic, visible and hidden, muted and joyful at Remai Modern, and to offer a soft, bright space for pausing between exhibitions. The colorful curtain reframes and filters, rather than represents our view of the South Saskatchewan River in the Northern Great Plains landscape. The artist encourages the visitors to reflect on how these lands are represented—and by whom.
Photo: Céline Condorelli, In the Light of What We Know, 2023, textile. Courtesy of the artist
Info: Remai Modern, 102 Spadina Crescent East, Saskatoon Saskatchewan, Canada, Duration: 29/6/2023-6/4/2025, Days & Hours: Wed & Sat-Sun 10:00-17:00, Thu-Fri 10:00-21:00, https://remaimodern.org/
