ART CITIES:Milan-Kasper Bosmans
In his practice, Kasper Bosmans associates socio-political themes and different historical-cultural contexts in forms which draw on heraldry, folkloristic symbolism, the tradition of the ready-made, and the history of decoration. Combined in a completely subjective way, these elements merge into works that narrate new mythologies, in an attempt to find new ways of communicating knowledge. Anecdotes from different times and places are translated into paintings, installations, and elegantly witty, sometimes ironic objects.
By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro Archive
With the exhibition “A Perfect Shop-Front” by Kasper Bosmans, Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro presents the first instalment of the new “Project Room” exhibition cycle, an “observatory” project dedicated to the most recent developments in the international artistic panorama. For “Project Room #13” the artist has designed an intricate intervention in which the elements of his lexicon are deployed to address strictly contemporary issues such as the breaking apart of natural ecosystems and the physical limitations imposed by the pandemic. The group of works triggers a dimension of flânerie that is anything but disengaged, in which the viewer encounters references to political consciousness in forms that take their cue from a radical approach to folk art, between concept and history of materials. A painted floor frieze crosses the space of the Foundation, a decorative and symbolic element that transforms the space in an enigmatic way. Entitled “Wolf Corridors & Stamp Forest” (2020), the work narrates the relationship between the European highway network and the portions of nature that remain trapped by high-speed roadways, interfering with the migratory habits of wild animals such as wolves, for which sections of forest are artificially safeguarded to allow them to move freely. Although two-dimensional, the frieze can influence the trajectories of visitors as they navigate the exhibition space. The installation “A Perfect Shop-Front” (2021), which gives the exhibition its title, was created expressly for the Foundation. In a sort of display window that recalls those of the traditional houses of the Low Countries, Bosmans arranges objects tied to the political and cultural history of the United States collected privately by the artist: together with their display system, these objects – books, posters, photographs, etc – create a short circuit between the public and private dimensions, between politics and the micro-histories narrated by the individual objects. A similar ambiguity is encountered in Vermiculated “Rustication” (2016), a wall drawing that represents a fake stone wall, a Renaissance bugnato that was revived by the Milanese design culture of the 1980s, which visually evokes the small tunnels dug by worms in the soil: a pattern that alludes to an organic process of degradation, thereby appearing to contradict the hardness of the stone. Project Room #13 confirms Bosmans’ predilection for an approach to sculpture informed by installation art, in which the artist inserts in all his exhibitions – included this one – small paintings entitled Legend (2020): allusive compositions of symbols, heraldic motifs, signs and codes that act as a narrative pathway through the three-dimensional works. The exhibition concludes with the instruction piece, “Lazy Susan” (2020). Designed for the Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, the exhibitionwas conceived remotely. In doing so, Bosmans puts a further meaning – tied to the historical contingency, to the method whereby the artist delegates the execution of the work and its setting to others, an historical nod to the fringe of conceptual art closest to Dada, with the aim of questioning the notion of authorship to the point of being able to embrace the intervention of chance.
Photo: from the exhibition: Kasper Bosmans- A Perfect Shop-Front”, Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, 2021, © Kasper Bosmans, Courtesy the artist and Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro
Info: Curator: Eva Fabbris, Fondazione Arnaldo Pomodoro, via Vigevano 9, Milan, Duration: 17/2-14/5/2021, Days & Hours: Tue-Fri 11:00-13:00 & 14:00-19:00 (Reservation is recommended), www.fondazionearnaldopomodoro.it
