Forewords
Silvio Fuso
Director of Museum Fortuny
It seems particularly difficult to describe, in such a brief statement, the uniqueness of a work and of a creative process whose suggestiveness never ceases to attract and astonish. Angiola Churchill is an artist that is blessed by the grace of a “synthetic effectiveness” in which symbolism, vision and a great ability for decorativeness are harmoniously founded.
I would like to pay particular attention to her ability for decorativeness. Perhaps it is because of the natural affinity that it has with the spirit of the polyhedric work of Mariano Fortuny: indeed, as soon as I saw the sumptuous garden created by Angiola in the ground floor exhibit space of the Palazzo Fortuny, it called to mind Mariano’s Parisian studio, that we, unfortunately, can only have access to from the artist’s photos. In entering the interior of well-defined spaces and boundaries, of milk-white transparencies, both express a precise concept and view of art and beauty. If for Fortuny all of these qualities are expressed above all in the realization of his stupendous fabrics and of the famous delphos, for Angiola they lead toward a visionary intuition of reality.
The decorative motifs, the knowledgeable manipulation of the paper, the subtle use of luminous effects, accumulate to create the essence of a world that, to be imaginative and imagined, is not less concrete or possible.
The rigorous union of constructive and decorative approaches renders Beyond the Garden a work that is radically “other” with respect to the Babele of the contemporary, in so much that the Labyrinth, the Farden, the Space without a Name allude to an important and mysterious function. Easy allegories are left aside in the name of a higher metaphorical concept of the artistic act.
In Angiola’s work the forms of nature and human culture are reproduced and reduced to their essences using the skills of the craftsman as the most important key of interpretation and as a sober ethic authenticity.
The “disinterested” aspect of beauty is all together prevalent, indeed, far from the necessity of indicating meanings or proposing messages, it simply is.
Beyond The Garden
2003 at Museum Fortuny, Venice, Italy
by Angiola Churchill
Western culture begins in Eden, the paradise from which man was expelled. This installations refers to the journey of Western culture from paradise to – where?
The first encounter in this installation is with an image of a labyrinth, ancient symbol of man’s desire for structure and order, and unambiguous path toi salvation or revelation devised and practiced by a collective community. However, this particular labyrinth is no longer a carrier of clear messages but a maze, replete with dead ends, diverse directions, corresponding to our contemporary state of mind.
The second structure encountered in the installation is a walled garden, representing man’s need to create a paradise on earth. It also represents man’s endeavor to control nature, ultimately our planet.
Human figures without bodies are traversing the garden: they are in a state of reforming themselves transforming – an evolution. Their bodies have left their garments, vestiges of their culture, behind.
All that is left are their empty dress that in design symbolizes stages of western cultures like the Greek column, the lucid tracery of Renaissance drawings the unblemished purity of the cult of the Virgin Mary.
These figures are in the process of leaving the garden. They are directed towards a space where there is another world of expanding energy, holding possibilities into which human kind will be catapulted as they penetrate deeper into the universe.
Curata da Annamaria Orsini Cammarata e realizzata con il sostegno di I.C.C.E.M. (Impresa Costruzioni Civili e Montaggi) e con la partecipazione del Caffè Florian, Oltre il Giardino è un’opera ispirata e dedicata a Venezia che trova nello spazio espositivo del portego-gondola, al piano terra di Palazzo Fortuny, per il quale è stata pensata, una collocazione quasi necessaria. La rispondenza tra sede espositiva ed installazione crea un felice giuoco di rimandi intellettuali ed evocativi: carta che vibra come damasco o si distende lieve come garza, pannelli che pendono dal soffitto come aerei merletti, come sontuosi tendaggi, motivi decorativi che ricordano quelli della Rinascenza, intrecci di carte che hanno la seducente bellezza, i fruscii, il cangiantismo cromatico dei tessuti di seta plissettata che Mariano Fortuny realizzò all’inizio del novecento per i “delphos”, gli abiti più straordinari del secolo. È Venezia il primo e naturale destinatario di questa esperienza artistica; ed è Venezia che oggi l’accoglie nella grande sala gondola del museo di Palazzo Fortuny. “Quante pareti dobbiamo attraversare per riuscire a muoverci e a sopravvivere in un universo che cambia continuamente?” ponendosi questa domanda Angiola Churchill, che ha raggiunto la bella età di ottanta anni, cominciò a lavorare e a creare i suoi universi cartacei e ancora continua a cercare la carta che la renda felice.
https://fortuny.visitmuve.it/it/mostre/archivio-mostre/angiola-churchill-oltre-il-giardino/2003/04/5716/progetto-15/