Sandy Skoglund. Visioni Ibride / 24 Jan – 24 March 2019

http://camera.to/en/exhibitions/sandy-skoglund-visioni-ibride/

Turin, CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia
24 January – 24 March 2019
Exhibition curated by Germano Celant
Further information and images: www.studioesseci.net
SANDY SKOGLUND

On Thursday 24 January in the spaces of CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia in Turin, the opening to the
public will take place of the major exhibition ‘Sandy Skoglund. Visioni Ibride’: the first retrospective show by the
US artist Sandy Skoglund (1946), curated by Germano Celant.

The exhibition brings together works ranging from her debut projects in the early 1970s right up to
the still unpublished Winter, which the artist has been working on for more than ten years. It will be this image
– accompanied by a number of sculptures created for the installation from which the photograph was taken –
that will serve as the fulcrum of the display: a spectacular world premiere, once again confirming the uniqueness
of her research and her language, developed at the height of the conceptual climate only to evolve through an
imagery suspended between dreams and reality, one of an extraordinary evocative power.

The exhibition thus allows us to follow this path through more than hundred works, almost all large
format images. Ranging from the earliest photographic series in the mid ’70s, which already feature the
characteristic themes of the domestic setting and its transformation into a place of apparitions between the
comical and the unsettling, right up to the great compositions of the early 1980s, which were to lead the artist
to international fame. In particular, we recall the visionary Radioactive Cats (1980) and her Revenge of the
Goldfish (1981), which became outright icons of the period, surreal and estranging reappraisals of family settings
with unlikely colours, invaded by green cats and flying fish. As the artist herself declares, “I believe there exists
a contrast between the aspect of imagination – the animals are like cartoons or fantasies – and reality. Since we,
as human beings, consider ourselves the main form of consciousness in nature, I chose to fill my images with
animals in order to introduce this alternative consciousness into our experience.”

Skoglund’s images always start out from the construction of an extremely complex set, which the
artist then photographs: a procedure which goes a long way to explaining the artist’s rarefied production and
the peculiarity of her visual path: at the same time installative, sculptural and photographic. These are all
elements that may be found in the Turin show, where several sculptures reference photographs and vice versa.

Among the many historical works that make up this exhibition, we might recall the twenty shots from
the series True Fiction Two, produced between 1986 and 2005, which offers a lysergic interpretation of the
American way of life, the spectacular compositions Fox Games (1989) and The Green House (1990), with their
now iconic animals: red foxes and purple dogs. They are followed by the ballad of Shimmering Madness (1998),
where the statues and the human figuresshare the same space in a crazy choreography, and the visionary picnic
of Raining Popcorn (2001). We then come to the two most recent works, Fresh Hybrid (2008) and the previously
unseen Winter (2018). These are the first two chapters of a series dedicated to the four seasons, among the
most ambitious and daring works undertaken by the artist: reflections not only on art but on life, in the ever
more complex relationship between the human being and nature, between reality and artifice. As Sandy
Skoglund writes, “to resist the snapshot, this photography moves at the speed of a glacier. Time will stand still
for a moment, but only after a long period of accumulation and labor. Each fragment of Winter has been chosen
to express the primal fear of human dependence on nature and on ourselves. We are not alone, and our situation
is endlessly precarious.”

The exhibition – which will remain on display until 24 March 2019 and is held in collaboration with
the Galleria Paci Contemporary in Brescia – is accompanied by a monographic volume published by Silvana
Editoriale, also in this case the first of its kind, edited by Germano Celant, in which the entire career of the artist
is reconstructed through the interweaving of her biography and her professional progress, documented by the
reproduction of all her works, accompanied by critical notes and a wide-ranging bibliography.

INFORMATION
CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia
Via delle Rosine 18, 10123 – Turin www.camera.to |camera@camera.to

Facebook/ @CameraTorino
Instagram/camera_torino
Twitter/@Camera_Torino #CAMERAtorino

Opening Times (Last entrance 30 minutes prior to closing)
Monday 11am – 7pm
Tuesday Closed
Wednesday 11am – 7pm
Thursday 11am – 9pm
Friday 11am – 7pm
Saturday 11am – 7pm
Sunday 11am – 7pm

Tickets
Adults €10
Concessions €6, up to 26 years of age, over 70
Members of Touring Club Italiano, Amici della Fondazione per l’Architettura, of the Ordine degli Architetti, the AIACE,
Enjoy, Slow Food, Centro Congressi Unione Industriale Torino, and carriers of the MenoUnoPiuSei Card. Holders of
entrance tickets for: Gallerie d’Italia (Milan, Naples, Vicenza), the National Museum of Cinema, MAO, Palazzo Madama,
Borgo Medievale, GAM – Galleria Civica d’Arte Moderna, Forte di Bard, MEF – Museo Ettore Fico.

Free Entrance
Children up to 12 years of age
Season ticket holders for Musei Torino Piemonte, holders of the Torino+Piemonte Card
Visitors with a handicap and a family member of theirs or another accompanier who can demonstrate their belonging to
socio-sanitary assistance services.

Booking and pre-sales services by Vivaticket.

Contacts
CAMERA – Centro Italiano per la Fotografia Press Office and Communications
Via delle Rosine 18, 10123 – Turin Giulia Gaiato
www.camera.to | camera@camera.to pressoffice@camera.to
tel. +39 011 0881151

Press Office: Studio ESSECI, Sergio Campagnolo
tel. +39 049 663 499
gestione3@studioesseci.net
www.studioesseci.net