Benni Bosetto : Tête en l'air - Viewing Room

Benni Bosetto : Tête en l'air

12 February - 02 April 2022

Benni Bosetto

Portrait of Benni Bosetto

Benni Bosetto (born 1987) is an Italian artist based in Milan. Her work combining drawing, sculpture, installation and performance always involves the body and its gesture. Her artistic practice is based on the superposition of fragmented narratives from anthropology, religion, popular beliefs and art history. Her research draws in particular on the techniques of the self analysed by Michel Foucault in the 1980s, on the study of ancient and contemporary healing rituals, and on the states of semi-consciousness specific to meditation and sleep. The artist considers her production as a collection of narratives about the human being that she assembles and elaborates through different mediums. Bosetto creates open-ended visual narratives in which the gaze wanders from one scene to another without ever focusing on a specific point.

Tête en l'air is Benni Bosetto's first exhibition with the gallery. The show revolves around the idea of distraction as a mental state that allows unexpected connections between the swinging moments of focus and drift.

Inspired by the holy iconography of the Italian Renaissance, Benni Bosetto creates enigmatic sculptures and drawings on silk that serve as containers for ‘divinely useless’ experiences. A concealed language, a form of mystery emerges throughout the gallery's space leading the visitors to feel constantly off track, turn their heads and change their gaze as lost in a fragment of the artist’s reverie.

“Diviners continue to search for water”, 2022

“Diviners continue to search for water”, 2022

Plaster, bronze, pomegranate and pomegranate branches

45 x 30 x 10 cm / 17.71 x 11.81 x 39.37 inches

Enquire

The exhibition opens with "Diviners continue to search for water", a small plaster case that brings to mind the shape of an airplane window. The viewer is invited to look inside the case and immerse in a forest of dried pomegranate branches from which body fragments, arms, legs and bronze ears grow. The wandering eye in this intricate landscape recalls the mental state of idly looking out the airplane's window under the dizzying effect of pressurized air. It is during these fleeting moments that the mind begins to wander distractedly and to feel somehow part of the whole, aware that reality is changeable depending on one's point of view.

"It is time to take aliens more seriously", 2021

"It is time to take aliens more seriously", 2021

Pencil on silk, fabric, wadding, wood, iron

73 x 49 x 4 cm / 28.74 x 19.29 x 1.57 inches

Enquire


The works on silk are inhabited by a multiplicity of unicellular organisms, humans, animals, saints, and visceral parasites all interconnected by biomechanical pipes that pass through their orifices to form a single living system. The drawings are freely executed by the artist directly on silk, mounted on cotton and framed in a handmade steel frame which give them a sculptural quality.

"Your intuition will be heightened during the 1st half of November", 2021

"Your intuition will be heightened during the 1st half of November", 2021

Pencil on silk, fabric, wadding, wood, iron

80 x 55 x 4 cm / 31.49 x 21.65 x 1.57 inches

Enquire

“Your intuition will be heightened during the 1st half of November“, 2021, detail

When they are not absorbed in some kind of reflection, Benni Bosetto's characters are grappling with a series of ritual gestures and self-care exercises. The body reveals itself here as the origin of perception, the source of material knowledge and the holder of an intergenerational memory.

"Like all great mysteries, we are all mysteriously called to love, no matter of our depravity or dispare", 2021

"Like all great mysteries, we are all mysteriously called to love, no matter of our depravity or dispare", 2021

Pencil on silk, fabric, wadding, wood, iron

80 x 55 x 4 cm / 31.49 x 21.65 x 1.57 inches

Enquire

"Like all great mysteries, we are all mysteriously called to love, no matter of our depravity or dispare", 2021

Thought on a cosmic, social and personal scale, Bosetto’s diary is often the source of her titles, sometimes extracted from a book or an article that has distracted her, aware that meaning is to be found between the interstices of reality, where distractions reside, when the head is in the clouds.

"The paradise is full of perverts", 2021

"The paradise is full of perverts", 2021

Pencil on silk, wadding, wood, iron

80 x 55 x 4 cm / 31.49 x 21.65 x 1.57 inches

Enquire

"The paradise is full of perverts", 2021, detail

The third room consists of a forest of bronze and ceramic sculptures from which a baroque profusion of jewels, amulets, magic and devotional objects emerge. Hanging from the ceiling or resting on the floor, the works result from a combination of different aesthetic registers, ranging from the iconography of Carlo Crivelli and his impudent cucumbers and fruits, to the lightness and airiness of Fausto Melotti's sculptures.

Benni Bosetto, Tête en l'air, installation view

Benni Bosetto, Tête en l'air, installation view

12 February - 02 April 2022

Campoli Presti Paris

“The cannibal solar storm could come very soon” (scepter with parasites and ears), 2021, detail

Benni Bosetto - “The cannibal solar storm could come very soon” (scepter with parasites and ears), 2021

Benni Bosetto

“The cannibal solar storm could come very soon” (scepter with parasites and ears), 2021

Bronze, iron and steel cables

87 x 30 x 7 cm / 34.25 x 11.81 x 2.75 inches

Enquire

The works in the exhibition highlight an enigmatic repertoire of accessories and talismans that refer to the genre of grotesques, a type of pictorial wall decoration dating back to ancient Rome, characterized by the depiction of hybrid and monstrous beings intertwined with geometric and naturalistic decorative elements.

“I release you...a spell for letting go once and for all!” (Scala2), 2021

“I release you...a spell for letting go once and for all!” (Scala2), 2021

Ceramic, iron and steel cables

80 x 40 x 2.5 cm / 31.49 x 15.74 x 0.78 inches

Enquire

“A lost temple of the sun returns to light” (the Angel of the Cob), 2021

“A lost temple of the sun returns to light” (the Angel of the Cob), 2021

Ceramic, iron and steel cables

75 x 40 x 5 cm / 29.52 x 15.74 x 1.96 inches

Enquire

"I release you... a spell for letting fo once and for all", 2021

Benni Bosetto, elements of sculptures

"Corporeal to the point of visceral, Benni Bosetto's artistic output emerges from physical and theoretical research,expanding into everyday rituals, belief-systems, news and fictions alike. I once stumbled upon her YouTube research playlist, which gave me a sense of the depth of her practice. Among the videos were documentaries of spiritual healers, historical references to dancing mania and public hysteria, dance traditions like minimalist theatre and tarantism, and erratic dances of people connecting with gods."

Giulia Civardi

“It is because my love is an ocean but my path is a river shaped by land that will heal us if we let it” (La Maddalena, una diva), 2021

“It is because my love is an ocean but my path is a river shaped by land that will heal us if we let it” (La Maddalena, una diva), 2021

Ceramic, bronze, iron copper

170 x 36 x 36 cm / 66.92 x 14.17 x 14.17 inches

Enquire

Benni Bosetto, Tête en l'air, installation view

Benni Bosetto, Tête en l'air, installation view

12 February - 02 April 2022

Campoli Presti Paris

Benni Bosetto - “Earth risk of global blackouts and more“ (Jewel 1) , 2021

Benni Bosetto

“Earth risk of global blackouts and more“ (Jewel 1) , 2021

Bronze, iron and steel cables

78 x 6 x 2 cm / 30.70 x 2.36 x 0.78 inches

Enquire

“Let’s dance bachata on the moon“ (Jewel 2), 2021

“Let’s dance bachata on the moon“ (Jewel 2), 2021

Bronze, iron and steel cables

72 x 11 x 2 cm / 28.34 x 4.33 x 0.78 inches

Enquire

"For several years, Benni Bosetto has been questioning the nature of identity, placing the body as the epicenter of her investigation. From practices of fabrication of the self present in ancient and contemporary rituals, to states of semi-consciousness implemented in meditation and sleep, up to the observation of matter as a witness of invisible transformations, the artist has explored the possibilities of a renewed relationship with ourselves and with reality in order to go beyond the usual methods of knowledge."

Caterina Molteni

“Saturday Total Eclipse” (Madonna della Candelotti), 2021

“Saturday Total Eclipse” (Madonna della Candelotti), 2021

Ceramic, bronze, iron and pomegranate branches

150 x 54 x 20 cm / 59.05 x 21.25 x 7.87 inches

Enquire

"Saturday Total Eclipse" (Madonna della Candelotti), 2021, detail

SELECTED PAST EXHIBITIONS

Benni Bosetto - Anima, 2020

Benni Bosetto

Anima, 2020

FUORI, Quadriennale d'Arte di Roma, 2020

"Anima (Soul, 2020) is an environmental and sound installation that evokes the human presence in absence. Filled with voices and sounds, the room seems abandoned, yet it evokes myths and quantic narrations. The torn wallpaper exposes drawings on the wall, while on the ground, amidst dust and waste, ceramic sculptures are reminiscent of organisms or organic elements. Bosetto rereads the dematerialization of the body, its transcending the space-time continuum and its becoming the image of a perennial becoming." - FUORI, Quadriennale d'Arte di Roma, 2020

Benni Bosetto, From bowel to sky, installation view at Bosco delle artiste, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, 2020

Benni Bosetto, From bowel to sky, installation view at Bosco delle artiste, Fondazione Sandretto Re Rebaudengo, Torino, 2020

Wall drawing, pencil, chalks

Benni Bosetto, Ambiente X (with Xenia Perek), performance at Kunstraum, London, 2019

Benni Bosetto, Ambiente X (with Xenia Perek), performance at Kunstraum, London, 2019

"For her first show in London, Benni Bosetto presents a new performance at Kunstraum that explores the transformative power of magical thinking through carefully designed sets, sounds and choreographed gestures. Developed and performed with Xenia Perek, the work combines diverse streams of research - trance, behavioural codes, magic, the primitive - to construct a different experience of daily rituals of labour and time. " - Giulia Civardi for Kunstraum, London

Benni Bosetto, Le Streghette, installation view at Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, Milan, 2018

Benni Bosetto, Le Streghette, installation view at Fonderia Artistica Battaglia, Milan, 2018

Lost wax bronze casting

Benni Bosetto, Figure di Spago, Pratiche di narrazione (group show), installation view at Fondazione Baruchello, Roma, 2018

Benni Bosetto, Figure di Spago, Pratiche di narrazione (group show), installation view at Fondazione Baruchello, Roma, 2018

Acrylic on wall

Benni Bosetto, FLORIDA, installation view at TILE Project Space, Milan, 2016

Benni Bosetto, FLORIDA, installation view at TILE Project Space, Milan, 2016

"When reality isn’t quite enough for us, we begin to explore our own associations, contemplating conterfectuals and fictive scenarios that only exist within the head.

The project consists in creating a narrative device composed of several elements: a set design, characters, symbolic elements and a pending estate script. Building a fictional space, the artist clears the imagination of reconstructing the story from its origins through the use of drawing, the first tool of the human expression, and paper. " - TILE Project Space, Milan

Sculptures elements

Benni Bosetto (Milan, 1987), lives and works in Milan. She graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts of Brera, Milan and she studied at the Sandberg Instituut, Amsterdam. Upcoming and recent solo exhibitions include: MAMbo Museo d’Arte Moderna, Bologna, (upcoming); Almanac, Turin (2020); Kunstraum, with Xenia Perek, London (2019); Fonderia Battaglia, Milan (2018); Convento de los Domenicos, Eivissa (2017); Tile Project Space, Milan (2016). Recent group exhibitions include: MAXXI L’Aquila (upcoming); Galleria Civica, Trento (2021); Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna, Rome (2021); Quadriennale d’arte, Palazzo delle Esposizioni, Rome (2020); Palazzo Re Rebaudengo, Guarene (2020); Villa Medici, Rome (2019); Artissima Special Project, Turin (2019); MAMbo, Bologna (2019); OGR, Turin (2018); Fondazione Baruchello, Rome (2018).

For further information please contact Elena Cardin cardin.elena@campolipresti.com


Please note that the availability of the works might be subject to change without prior notice.