Spotlight with Camilla Boemio
Camilla Boemio, AOC F58 Galleria Bruno Lisi, Cycladic Arts, Roma, Italy
Could you tell us a little more about your background and how you got into curating?
I realized that contemporary and modern art held great importance in my life when I was a teenager. My favorite afternoons were dedicated to creating drawings and taking photos in museums of Roma, Florence, and Venice, which allowed me to become familiar with their permanent collections. It was during this time that I discovered Land Art, and I became completely absorbed by artists who created artworks within the landscape using natural materials such as soil, rock, boulders, and trees. Occasionally, they incorporated man-made materials like concrete, metal, and asphalt. Two artworks that particularly influenced my imagination were Hamish Fulton's 'The Pilgrims Way' (1971) and Walter De Maria's 'The Lightning Field'.
What I found inspiring, both personally and for my research focusing on the body, was Cindy Sherman's debut over forty years ago with her polymorphous persona, which has been the artist's primary subject ever since. Through her work, she not only reflects upon herself but also critiques mass cultures. Additionally, the provocatively sublime art of Matthew Barney completely absorbed me.
My own work, including my PhD thesis, centers around interdisciplinary systems from an intersectional feminist perspective. I emphasize gender and the body, with a particular focus on social and political systems as well as other ecologies.
Two decades ago, I began writing about contemporary art and curating exhibitions. Art is a dynamic field that continuously regenerates itself. Power, belief, and the perception of reality are constantly shaped and shared within society, and understanding this interplay is crucial for comprehending the evolution of both society and art.
Who/what has influenced your curatorial practice?
I'm interested in projects and artworks that speak of engendered social frameworks, body conflicts, and ontological individual freedoms which have been dismantled and betrayed with a focus on the social systems and other ecologies.
My curatorial practice has been influenced by Harald Szeemann, the renowned figure in avant-garde exhibition-making in Europe; the art and architecture critic Eugenio Battisti; art critic Lea Vergine; cultural critic and philosopher Adrian Parr; and American anthropologist, writer, and activist Jane Jacobs.
The role of the curator is continuously changing. Could you describe what it means to be a curator today?
The curatorial practice needs to derail all our civilized habits of seeing, hearing, reading, and even smelling and touching, in order to provide another escape from history. Perhaps, in these challenging times, there are new prospects for curating exhibitions in non-profit spaces where art is protected and expanded. Art has become decentralized, resembling an archipelago of Glissant's theories.
Curating is all about creating connections between institutions, people, and objects - whether they are tangible or conceptual in the realm of art. Making exhibitions brings people together in a specific context.
Tell us about the latest exhibition / project that you curated.
One of my latest exhibitions was a solo show of Zoè Gruni at AOC F58 Galleria Bruno Lisi in Roma, and a talk titled 'Corpo come Frontiera' with Zoè Gruni at Pistoia Musei. Gruni is one of the most representative Italian-Brazilian artists of her generation. Her work is coherent, principled, and consistent to the point of being radical, exploring gender issues, identity, diaspora, forced colonization in Brazil, and indigenous history. Gruni's artworks also address the tension and conflicts in valuing women's roles in Italy. She uses her own body to promote the feminist cause and engages in a collective dialogue with other performers, writers, and directors, creating impactful collective works. This approach has enabled her to reach great heights as an artist, creating 'total works' of contemporary art.
I am interested in practices that develop discourses around gender, the body, and body politics, resulting in a new vision of society and 'identity bending,' a key Modernist trope spanning from Marcel Duchamp to Matthew Barney. While in the beginning of my career I primarily wrote about these topics, now I engage in curatorial activities and aim to curate even more art projects. My initiation was the solo show 'Jérôme Chazeix: The Coat of Hipness (Materiali Velati),' curated for the AltaRoma2020 agenda at Label201 in Roma, and the research project 'Marina Moreno: Dance as Sculpture in Space,' expanded in Brazil with support from Arts Council England (2019-2020).
This topic is one of the most relevant and hottest issues in the current proliferation of gender fluidity, transvestism, and cross-gender identifications. Informed by diverse strands of critical theory, political militancy, and pop-cultural investigations, these playful explorations of identity and desire reflect the widespread reinterpretation of the relationships between sexuality, power, and identity that have occurred over the past years.
The exhibition is organized and has taken shape around the video installation titled 'Fromoso.' 'Fromoso' is a video-performance (Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, 2019-2020) inspired by the concept of anthropophagy. The action took place inside the dump where floats used in the Carnival celebration are discarded, in the harbor area of Rio de Janeiro. The dancer Ana Kavalis lends her body to an esoteric ritual that absorbs it until it disappears. The project-specific soundtrack was created by Polish musician Jeff Gburek.
The works on display incorporated and originated from the site-specific installation composed of fabrics that surrounded the video installation and culminated in "Fromoso" (2020) photographic print on forex, "Fromoso" (2020). It consists of six elements made from photographic print on forex, and “Fromoso I”; “Fromoso II”; “Formosus III”; “Fromoso VI”, (2020) a series of two linocuts on paper.
In this catharsis, symbols branch out and take shape. Identity becomes investigation, a politico-aesthetic bulwark encompassing echoes from Peter Gorsen's Obscene Dimension. The ideological content of moral rebellion becomes an anti-capitalist vision, a return to Rousseau's 'noble savage', the application of the revolutionary sense of 'obscene' aggressions to established morality.
This solo show expanded a part of my curatorial studies. Gruni also draws on the visual tradition of the Later Renaissance, evoked by Eugenio Battisti in his 'L'Antirinascimento,' as well as kaleidoscopic anthropological modalities of art where the archaic power of historical legacy converses with the more rigorous language of contemporary art. The human body is described as a porous instrument of pleasure, a fiery maze of transformation, fluid, independent, irreverent, with ancestral terror hovering over it with different degrees of asceticism.
Another recent site-specific solo show was curated with American-based artist Ron Laboray at Colla Super, which will be on view from June 23 through July 7, 2023, in Milan. Laboray is a multimedia conceptual artist known for his paintings, drawings, videos, and sculptures exploring time and popular culture. His work combines elements of abstraction and realism to discuss topics within mass culture, shared histories, globalization, and time.
The drawings presented at Colla Super represent points along time lines that include common facts, known histories, science, collections of objects describing our shared world, invented fictions, and cultural myths. Laboray is interested in subject matter that instills hope and demonstrates important values. These time lines operate using appropriated scientific laws, such as 'The Law of Superposition,' which serves as a way to depict geological time. The older information, which came first in time, is in the foreground, while the newer, more recent information is in the background. This reading can also be flipped, depending on the temporal position of the drawing's information. Drawing traditions also aid in deciphering the time lines. Clarity and overlap are used to create a sense of time through distance, detail, and sharpness. Ultimately, the drawings frame a narrative of humanity and present information and ideas that are current and accessible to almost everyone.
What are you reading, watching, or listening to now, that is helping you to stay relaxed and positive?
I'm interested in the intersections of art and activism, particularly under challenging political, social, and economic conditions. I am drawn to rural contexts and the promotion of environmental sustainability. I genuinely care about and actively engage in community building, discovering alliances, exploring affinities, and fostering solidarities. Art can serve as an amplifier for the energies and intensities of resistance.
Things that bring me happiness are often unexpected. During this summer, I am revisiting the works of Paolo Pasolini, with Ancient Greece as a backdrop. Films such as 'Edipo Re' (1967), 'Medea' (1969), and 'Appunti per un'Orestiade africana' (1968-1969) are capturing my attention. Greece was not a sudden love for the author.
Music is another source of inspiration for me. Currently, I am enjoying a return to The Strokes. As one of the leading 'The' bands in the early 2000s, The Strokes catapulted indie music into the mainstream. They exuded a sense of coolness. I am also listening to Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, White Stripes, Franz Ferdinand, The Smashing Pumpkins, Radiohead, Editors, and Interpol.
How long have you been part of IKT and how do you feel that it has benefited your curatorial practice?
In general, I have woven a dialogue of many voices in several past curatorial projects, rather than making a fixed statement. This approach offers a broader perspective on curatorial practices. This has been made possible through my participation in IKT.
Thank you Camilla!
Learn more about Camilla Boemio: Instagram | Facebook | Website | Blog
Spotlight
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