Archivio Atelier Pharaildis Van den Broeck presents PROJECT ROOM #5, a collaboration between the artist Sara Enrico and the fashion designer Fabio Quaranta, inspired, as usual, by the work of the Italo-Belgian fashion designer and artist Pharaildis Van den Broeck (1952-2014).
For this exhibition, Enrico and Quaranta carried out careful research on Van den Broeck’s work from the ’90s. Starting from the idea of drapery – as depicted by Pharaildis in a series of oil on Masonite paintings – the two artists have reconfigured the rooms of the Archivio Atelier, conflating the different languages of sculpture, painting, and fashion, altering the visitors’ interaction with space.
The aesthetic and formal differences among the work of Pharaildis Van den Broeck and that of Sara Enrico and Fabio Quaranta generate the fertile ground for a series of new practices to blossom. The emotional minimalism that characterizes Sara Enrico’s sculptures together with the essential rigor of Fabio Quaranta’s editions contrasts the exceeding textures of the paintings by Van den Broeck generating a poetical polyphony of language.
Sara Enrico and Fabio Quaranta conceived a set for a series of subtle fragments, after being influenced by the artistic and fashion background of Pharaildis Van den Broeck. The two guests of PROJECT ROOM #5 deliver a new rarefied emotional dimension to the viewers, in which the distinguishing ebullience of colors and bold textures, characteristic of Pharaildis’s art, are diluted to bring new attention to a series of imperceptible details and concealed aspects part of the artist’s work.
Gravity defines the shapes and volumes of sculpture and garments, as much as light confers a pictorial quality to those same objects. These two elements are in dialogue with the different artworks on display, contributing to enhancing an intimate and sensual atmosphere full of tactile suggestions, enveloping the space.
Art and Fashion freely play around in areconfigured Archivio Atelier, whose space has been changed by Enrico and Quaranta, solely relying on the elements that were already present because they belonged to Van den Broeck. This process of reconfiguration reveals the versatility of the Archivio Atelier, a unique location that, despite its strong identity and memories, can adapt to different needs, without losing its characteristics, just like garments.
Once again, this fifth edition of PROJECT ROOMS aims to highlight the stimulating comparison which stems from the encounter of different practices and disciplines within the unexpected spaces of the Archivio Atelier Pharailids Van den Broeck.
In particular, PROJECT ROOM #5 underlines the results reached by Quaranta and Enrico after being presented with the vast heterogeneity of the material (fashion patterns, sketches, fashion and art books, sculptures, paintings, and so on) made by PharaildisVan den Broeck.
The memories and the body of work left by the Italo-Belgian artist has so far offered endless possibilities for reinterpretations and analysis; every time a new artist enters the Archivio Atelier, they can discover new connections with the artist and imagine new scenarios.
On the occasion of PROJECT ROOM # 5, the fifth issue of the booklet edited by Emiliano Biondelli will be available, an independent and complementary publication published during every Project Room.
Project Room is the opening project of the Archivio Atelier Pharaildis Van den Broeck, conceived and coordinated by the archive’s curator Barbara Garatti. This project aims at the one hand to enhance and support the work of Pharaildis Van Den Broeck and, on the other, to promote new practices within the field of the contemporary visual arts. This is in keeping with the mission of the Archivio Atelier Pharaildis Van den Broeck and its Committee, which includes Michele Sagramoso, Paola Richetti, Barbara Garatti, Anna Daneri and Cesarina Meda.
