Elegantia

“Elegantia” is the first solo show hosted by an Italian institution of the work by Belgian artists Jos de Gruyter and Harald Thys. Conceived as the construction of a precise environment in rigorous dialogue with the rooms of Palazzo dell’Arte, “Elegantia” has been envisioned as a mise-en-scene of the idea itself of “show”, mental reflection and artificial mirage of an exhibition. Indirectly inspired by the rich, complex and hypertrophic history of production and display that features Triennale and its spaces, the show is the caricature of an architecture, the image of an exhibition about “fine arts”, that reveals itself – after a few moments of estrangement – as an ambiguous catalogue of horrors and only apparent normalities.

  Seduced and terrified by the mechanical rules of society – psychology of domination and humiliation – and from the ruthlessness of the everyday, the artists bring to life parallel worlds through the obsessive compiling of catalogues and lists: people, objects, cars, animals, architectural elements and city corners. Figures and characters of fear and innocence, of depravation and lightness are presented on stage without any hierarchy, moral judgement or social interpretation. Flat and motionless, bidimensional and stereotyped, they inhabit an ideal and dystopian space, mute and defenseless witnesses of our world.

The architecture of the show – a spatial and optical device shaping the ambiguous relation between subject and object – is a set-up and a piece in itself: an enfilade of arches in false perspective – almost ironically emphasized by the proportions of its parts – is the manifesto of a monument that flaunts itself to reveal its flat and tragi-comical uselessness.

28 January – 19 March 2017
Jos de Gruyter & Harald Thys: Elegantia
curated by Francesco Garutti
Triennale di Milano
viale Alemagna 6, Milan