Constellations:
Annette Barcelo
(In collaboration with Galleria Franco Noero)

Consonni Radziszewski and Galleria Franco Noero present an exhibition of Annette Barcelo (b. 1943, Basel) and Jason Dodge (b. 1969, Pennsylvania). Galleria Franco Noero was established in 1999 in Turin. In the years 2010-2015 Matteo Consonni was its director. This presentation constitutes the inaugural exhibition of Consonni Radziszewski created from a merger of Dawid Radziszewski in Warsaw and Madragoa in Lisbon.

 

BREUGEL’S TWO MONKEYS

This is what I see in my dreams about final exams:

two monkeys, chained to the floor, sit on the windowsill,

the sky behind them flutters,

the sea is taking its bath.

The exam is History of Mankind.

I stammer and hedge.

One monkey stares and listens with mocking disdain,

the other seems to be dreaming away–

but when it’s clear I don’t know what to say

he prompts me with a gentle clinking of his chain.

 

Wisława Szymborska

Translated by Stanisław Barańczak and Clare Cavanagh

 

Annette Barcelo (b. 1943, Basel) lives and works in Basel. In Barcelo’s work we witness the emergence of an oneiric universe populated by mystical beings: witches, chimeras and zoomorphic hybrids. These creatures exist in a suspension between life and death possessing a symbolic power over mortality and rebirth. Though in her works these figures can be read as substitutes for human figures, it is the female figure that is an almost sacred point of reference for her entire artistic practice.

Jason Dodge (b. 1969, Pennsylvania) creates sculptures and and exhibitions that speak of absence, distance, haptic and visual perception. His work is often compared to poetry and, like much poetry, demands the reader or viewer to be present and to look into themselves as conduits of meaning. By reading a poem or a sculpture something new is made. Dodge says: “it is not what something means that is important, it is how something means.” His works