“L’ALTRA FORMA DELLE COSE”, QUANDO IL DNA DIVENTA MATRICE D’ARTE (“THE OTHER SHAPE OF THINGS”, WHEN DNA BECOMES ART MATRIX)
CASA ZEGNA HOSTS THE EMILIO VAVARELLA EXHIBITION IN WHICH CONTEMPORARY ART, NATURE AND SCIENCE LIVE IN A UNIQUE PROJECT DEDICATED TO THE ZEGNA OASIS
Emilio Vavarella
The other form of things (AAS47692 / Picea abies)
Casa Zegna, via G. Marconi 23, Trivero Valdilana
May 22 – November 13, 2022
Inauguration: Sunday, May 22
Opening: every Sunday from May 22 to November 13, from 11am to 5pm.
Extraordinary openings: May 28, June 4. In August open every day.
Info: Tel. 015 7591463, casazegna@fondazionezegna.org
Admission: 5 euros
Source www.fondazionezegna.org
The other shape of things (AAS47692 / Picea abies) is the title, inspired by the DNA identification code of the spruce (Picea abies), which gives its name to the exhibition by Emilio Vavarella at Casa Zegna, a new stage of his artistic research. The new work by Vavarella – an interdisciplinary artist and researcher at Harvard University, where he is pursuing a doctorate in Film, Visual Studies and Critical Media Practice – stems from the invitation of the Zegna Foundation, always ready to open up to contemporary research and to give space to emerging talents.
The exhibition investigates the production activities of the Zegna Group and the geographical context of the Foundation and the Zegna Oasis through a project that places in dialogue the history of the place and the company, the digitization of contemporary weaving techniques and biology.
For the project, Emilio Vavarella used different types of fabrics. First of all, the collection of BielMonte ™ fabrics produced by the Ermenegildo Zegna Wool Mill with 100% native wool coming from flocks that graze in the Zegna Oasis and embellished by an embroiderer of “mending for good”, the platform that enhances the textile craftsmanship of excellence giving life to the waste production of fashion brands.
The project also involved the famous textile manufacturer BONOTTO, a company that is part of the Textile Luxury Laboratory Platform of the Zegna Group, which combines the creative and experimental dimension with the culture of craftsmanship and traditional techniques. The 100% recycled synthetic yarns, intertwined with a gobelin jacquard loom, gave life to a large tapestry (320 x 140 cm), the visual heart of the project.
Finally, the hand-woven linen and wool canvases in the San Patrignano weaving workshop allowed the artist to fix a digital design on a particularly material weft and warp.
The same graphic elaboration of the genetic code of the fir is found in the series of aluminum plates printed with the sublimation technique.
The artist – who comes from a previous project, The Other Shapes of Me, in which he tells how the specificity of each living being is linked to the different combination of the 46 DNA chromosomes – was struck by the particular nature of Oasi Zegna, where 500 thousand spruce trees live, introduced ‘artificially’ by Ermenegildo Zegna starting in the 1930s, which create a very dense forest, almost a plant tissue born by human will.
This suggestion, a forest made up of thousands of variations of the same genetic code, a landscape that is both natural and artificial, prompted Vavarella to start from the sequencing of the DNA of a spruce to be able to represent it in space through texture, central to activities and company history. The symbiosis between information and characteristic representation of DNA and fabrics leads the artist to transfer the code of the spruce into different material forms created with different techniques and technologies, from printing on fabric to embroidery to tapestry.
Through the transposition of reality into code textures, The other shape of things (AAS47692 / Picea abies) effectively evokes the theme of contemporary memory and our relationship with technology and nature (made present by the root presented on the wall), through the encounter with technological innovations, part of a creative process in which the emotional components and the random elements interact with the scientific nature of technology. The other form of things becomes an intimate and exciting experience.
