A cross look at Casa Mollino through canvases, photographs and polaroids

The hallucinated canvases of Enoc Perez, the “liquid” photographs of Brigitte Schindler, the seductive models on Carlo Mollino’s polaroids. In Reggio Emilia, the Maramotti Collection exhibition celebrates a place-symbol of design, today shrouded in mystery.

Looking at the Casa Mollinos interior, we immediately think about the atmosphere of the Vittoriale by D’Annunzio, those interiors described with meticulous and morbidity in the pages of À rebours by Joris-Karl Huysmans. And yet, Carlo Mollino from Turin had nothing in common with the bohemian personality, the suffering aesthete of fin de siècle: his artistic research was always firmly anchored to rationalism, to engines, to the technique’s rigour. His existence was that of a private personality, far from the spotlight and exuberance. His Casa, which he renovated and furnished as a cabinet de curiosités, was for him always a utopian place of escape, the Ideal (in which, among other things, he never lived).

Enoc Perez, Brigitte Schindler, Carlo Mollino, Mollino/Insides, Collezione Maramotti, Reggio Emilia, Italy, 2020. Photo Roberto Marossi

Perhaps, it was the mystery that binds it to its creator that stimulated the Puerto Rican artist Enoc Perez to reinterpret those spaces within his large-format canvases, from which emerges an indefinite vision, dreamlike, sometimes feverish. The same objects, furniture, details, home corners and domestic fragments become the protagonists of Brigitte Schindler’ artworks, whose post-produced photographs imbue every detail with an overflowing sensuality and sinuosity. In a crescendo of eroticism a bit voyeur, the path of Mollino/Insides culminates in a small space hidden by velvet curtains, beyond which dominate all the women of Carlo Mollino: on the polaroid exposed – some original, other reprints – the models wink in seductive poses, friends or lovers, immortalized in the middle of the night maybe, or at the first light of dawn. A portion of intimate life of which only a partially faded trace remains, a secret that will remain forever silent between Casa Mollino’ walls.

Exposition title:
Mollino/Insides
Works by:
Enoc Perez and Brigitte Schindler
In collaboration with:
Museo Casa Mollino
Where:
Collezione Maramotti, Via Fratelli Cervi 66, 42124, Reggio Emilia
Opening dates:
4 October 2020 – 16 May 2021

Latest on Art

Latest on Domus

Read more
China Germany India Mexico, Central America and Caribbean Sri Lanka Korea icon-camera close icon-comments icon-down-sm icon-download icon-facebook icon-heart icon-heart icon-next-sm icon-next icon-pinterest icon-play icon-plus icon-prev-sm icon-prev Search icon-twitter icon-views icon-instagram