SILVIA GIAMBRONE | dillo con i fiori
about.
For the Hibakushas who survived the nuclear holocaust, the ordeal has never stopped bursting in on their lives; although they survived, their existence has remained caught in the moment of the blast. As witnesses they were forced to conceal the fact that they were in Hiroshima prior to and after the bombardment, for fear of being rejected by a society which marginalised those who were potentially radioactive, and because of the constant risk of falling ill or bringing sick children into the world as a result of the radiation to which they had been exposed.
Therein why Silvia Giambrone chose to work on the image of the clock found after the explosion and currently on show at the Hiroshima Peace Museum, which displays the exact time at which the blast struck; her creative intervention moves time forward by one minute, and adds a second hand which endlessly flicks backwards and forwards, caught between past and future.
The artist tells the story of a time and a place – both irrevocably at a standstill – in which the Hibakushas’ lives have remained trapped: she underlines how the hardest moment of their lives was not so much the bomb’s explosion, but everything that came afterwards, with the awareness of having survived.
The exhibition takes its from the never-before-seen piece dillo con i fiori (say it with flowers)), in which the daisies reveal the effects which the radioactivity produced by the Fukushima disaster has had. Here these flowers, which usually symbolise a gift or an explosion of life, tell a story of the shape nature had taken to survive.
The flowers and the clock are objects which bear testimony to the tragic events they have passed through and, by showing their inevitable mutation, emphasise the nature of the survival to which man and nature have been driven as a result of history breaking into their lives.
The exhibition’s closing night will be accompanied by an original performance by Silvia Giambrone, alongside the presentation of a new publication edited by Cristiana Perrella, in conversation with the artist.
Read and download the exhibition’s press release.
artist.
SILVIA GIAMBRONE was born in Agrigento in 1981. She lives and works between Rome and London.
After graduating from the Academy of Fine Arts in Rome in 2006, she attended an Advanced Course in Visual Art at the Antonio Ratti Foundation in 2009.
In 2015 she took part in an artist residency at the International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP) in New York; in 2019 she will be in residency at the Swatch Art Peace Hotel in Shanghai, China.
In 2008 she was selected for the Fondazione Agnelli’s Young Artist Award, and the following year she won the Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa’s Epson Prize. In 2013 she won the first prize at the Kaunas Biennale, and in 2014 earned a Collectors’ Award at the Premio Celeste.
Major exhibitions include:
in 2018: Young Italians, curated by Ilaria Bernardi, Italian Institute of Culture, New York; in 2017: Time Is out of Joint, curated by Cristiana Collu, and Corpo a corpo, curated by Paola Ugolini, both at the National Gallery of Modern Art in Rome; in 2016: dillo con fiori, at the Studio Stefania Miscetti, W. Women in Italian Design, curated by Silvana Annicchiarico, at the IX Milan Triennale, as well as Archeology of the Domestics Vol. I, Italienisches Kulturinstitut, Cologne, Germany; in 2014: Ciò che non siamo, ciò che non vogliamo, curated by Federico Mazzonelli and Denis Isaia, Museo Alto Garda, Trento; in 2013: Silvia Giambrone, Critica in Arte, curated by Silvia Cirelli, MAR Museum, Ravenna, Let it go, curated by Nari Ward and SACS, American Academy in Rome, Autoritratti (Self-portraits). Iscrizioni del femminile nell’arte italiana contemporanea, with curatorial coordination by Uliana Zanetti, MAMbo, Bologna, Mediterranea 16 Young Artists Biennial – Errors Allowed “(BJCEM), curated by Charlotte Bank, Alessandro Castiglioni, Nadira Laggoune, Delphine Leccas, Slobodne Beze/Loose Associations, Marco Trulli, Claudio Zecchi, Ancona, and SUBJECTIVE MAPS/DISAPPEARANCES, Parallel Borders 1/Monuments & Shrines to Capitalism, curated by Mark Mangion for Malta Contemporary Art, National Gallery of Iceland; in 2012: Re-Generation, edited by M. Alicata and I. Gianni, MACRO Testaccio, Rome, and Flyers, la Fortaleza de La Cabaña, Oncena Bienal de la Habana, Cuba; in 2010: Qui vive?, curated by Daria Pyrkina, Daria Kamyshnikova, Moscow International Biennale for Young Art, Russia; in 2009: A Camel Is a Horse Designed by a Committee (Attempts at Rewriting the Wor(l)d), curated by Stefano Coletto, Anna Daneri, Cesare Pietroiusti, Fondazione Bevilacqua La Masa, Venice, and Pandora’s boxes, BAC! 10.0, Centre for Contemporary Culture of Barcelona, Spain; in 2008: Eurasia. Geographic cross-overs in art, curated by A. Bonito Oliva, L. Benedetti, I. Boubnova, C. Carey, Hu Fang, C. Rekade, J. Trolp, MART, Rovereto.
Over the years, her work has been presented in various public museums and institutions across Italy, including the MART in Rovereto and the Villa Croce in Genoa, as well as internationally, at the Cyprus Samira and the National Museum of M. K. Čiurlionis in Lithuania.
For a more complete artist profile, see the artist page.
more exhibitions.
more exhibitions by SILVIA GIAMBRONE with STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI.
BABIES ARE KNOCKING
group show
may 27th, 2021 - october 2, 2021
SILVIA GIAMBRONE
il danno
november 8, 2018 - january 2019
SHE DEVIL: REMIX
video exhibition
july 26th - september 20th, 2018
pecci museum, prato
more.
more catalogues.
more catalogues by SILVIA GIAMBRONE with STUDIO STEFANIA MISCETTI
BABIES ARE KNOCKING
exhibition catalogue
SSM, rome 2021