Until May 16th, Collezione Maramotti brings together Perez’s painting with photographs by Schindler and Mollino
Carlo Mollino (1905-1973), a multifaceted 20th-century figure famous for his work in architecture and design, loved photography throughout his life. In his hands, it became a tool for creating a different, alternative reality. The female body was a recurring theme from his earliest portraits, inspired by Surrealism, to his Polaroids of nudes from the 1960s. Mollino’s last flat in Via Napione in Turin was a private realm, conceived and designed down to the last detail to reflect his vision of the world. This materialization of Mollino’s sophisticated, complex imaginary is the subject of ‘Mollino/Insides’, the exhibition hosted by Collezione Maramotti in Reggio Emilia until May 16th. The show begins with glimpses of Mollino’s last, mysterious residence – now a museum – as transformed by Enoc Perez’s brush and Brigitte Schindler’s lens. But it also presents Mollino’s own photographs of models, which blur into the enigmatic essence of the imaginary they inhabit.
Mollino’s last flat in Via Napione in Turin was a private realm, conceived and designed down to the last detail to reflect his vision of the world
Since the late 1990s, Puerto Rican artist Enoc Perez has been investigating iconic buildings of the 20th century and their role as social metaphors of fascination and beauty. Collezione Maramotti already holds several of Perez’s works, including a diptych of Casa Malaparte made for a temporary exhibition in 2008 and now on permanent display. In September 2019, Perez visited Casa Museo Mollino and took pictures of its interiors, using them as the basis for several new large-scale paintings made specifically for this exhibition.
The same flat served as inspiration for Schindler, whose photographic adventure of the past 3 years has yielded evocative images and startling visions of its interiors. Her photographs – exhibited here for the first time – capture the suspended mystery of the depicted spaces and the subtle connections between the objects that Mollino chose and arranged. Through a sophisticated balance of mirrors, reflections, metamorphoses, and revelations, her visions lead along an aesthetic and conceptual path to discover Mollino’s complex.
Mollino/Insides – Installation view – Credits: Ph. Roberto Marossi – Courtesy of Collezione Maramotti
Ilona Catani Scarlett