Opening Nov. 9 is “Vibrations”, a personal exhibition by LETIA (Letizia Cariello) and the fourth installment of the “Scripta?” art cycle that will see the Gaggenau DesignElementi Hub showroom in Milan transformed into a theater of connections animated by mystical and transcendent works.
Love as an act of subversion, inner shaking, tension toward the other, and never as contemplative stasis. This is the starting and ending point of the “Vibrations”exhibition.
The concept of movement is configured in this path-as well as in the artist’s entire production, even in the most monumental installations-as an inescapable element. It is no coincidence that the most recurring form in the works is the circular form: everything flows and transforms, without limits or predetermined directions.
In this universe of infinite possibilities, the artist reconstructs connections and relationships otherwise lost. Her sign collects and assembles traces of life, traverses everyday objects recognizing every feeling, even suffering, as an experiential value and existential passage from which to learn.
LETIA’s art thus becomes a form of catharsis, beginning with the creative process of the works, which takes place almost in a trance-like state in which the artist investigates the relationship between inner and outer space, immaterial and contingent, increasingly challenging herself, even on a physical level.
A clear example is the series of Calendars,” which Cariello creates by recording on circular supports made of marble, copper, steel or other materials, a sequence of numbers and letters representing the initials of the dates on which he undertakes the performative exercise of meditation on time and its real existence.
Alongside the Calendars, the exhibition will also host the Gates cycle, in which an endless woolen rope is wrapped around an ever-visible nail pattern, creating a symbolic window to elsewhere. The protagonist of this series is indigo blue, a clear reference to the Sacred Nails and the color attributed by the Old Testament and Byzantine and Orthodox tradition to the Madonna and Magdalene, figures beloved by the artist; but there are also explicit references to Buddhist geometries. In this sense, LETIA’s art never takes on religious connotations, but rather spiritual ones.
“The works of Letizia Cariello – LETIA are integrated into the Gaggenau space, telling its story,” comments exhibition curator Sabino Maria Frassà. “The nail is the starting point for both the company and the artist: from this small iron element, produced in 1683, originates the story that has led the German brand to be today synonymous with minimalist technological design. Similarly, nails are the origin and staples of the textures of the famous “Gates” created by the artist to tell the universal love that binds us all. The cycle of works in the exhibition “Calendars” completes this vision by telling the importance of being beyond time, of the fact that past, present and future coexist in every moment. What is the human being if not a life force, pure energy beyond time, expressing itself in all its power through living with and for others?”
It is a practice of LETIA to care, to heal wounds, to shape love. From “Calendars” to “Gates”, all her works are always the result of the harmonious fusion of individual elements that do not mix or annihilate, but vibrate with their own power in communion with the whole: letters, numbers, embroideries, gestures, nails shine chorally in the harmony that characterizes Letizia Cariello’s artistic gesture.
“Vibrations”
personal exhibition of LETIA (Letizia Cariello)
curated by Sabino Maria Frassà
November 9, 2023 to February 2, 2024
Monday-Friday 10:00 a.m. – 6:30 p.m.
Gaggenau DesignElementi Hub
Corso Magenta 2, Milano
Visits open to the public by appointment only after e-mail or telephone contact.
E-mail: gaggenau@designelementi.it
T. +39 02 29015250
